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TO PANAMA 
AND BACK 



THE RECORD OF AN EXPERIENCE 



BY 



HENRY T. BYFORD, M. D. 




W. B. CONKEY COMPANY 

CHICAGO 



f\5 



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:^ o r. q ^ -^ 



Copyright, 1908, 

BY 

HenkyT. Dyford, M. D. 



f-/<Df^3 



DEDIGA TED 

to the 

Panama Canal Commissioners, 

who invited the President of the United States 

to run down and see them dig the Canal 

while he waited; 

and to the President. 

who went to the Canal and found them asleep. 

and didn't wait until it was dug. 




< 

Ph 

o 

Pi 

< 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 
PART I 

CHAPTER TO PANAMA 

I Chicago to New Orleans — Principally Chi- 
cago 11 

II Getting Off 23 

III At Sea 29 

IV Port Limcn 48 

V Colon and the Panama Railway 64 

VI Panama 87 

• VII At Gran Hotel Central 100 

VIII For Doctors Only 125 

IX A Siesta and Such 136 

X About Town 151 

XI Town Topics 169 

XII The Past and the Present Panama 176 

XIII New Year's Day and the Sabanas 184 

XIV The Bull-Fight 192 

PART II 

THE FOURTH PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

I The Opening of the Congress 207 

II Breakfast and Dinner on the Same Day .... 220 

, III Panama Bay and Paramount Barrett 230 

IV Congress Redivivus 241 

V To See Ourselves as Others See Us 251 

PART III 
BACK 

I Accommodations at Colon 265 

II Sunday at Colon 273 

III After Bananas and Alliga-TORS 292 

IV From Bad to Worse 309 

V The Didactics of Seasickness 327 

VI The Last Day at Sea and the First on Land 335 

VII Traveling North by Way of the South.... 356 

VIII Did You Have a Pleasant Trip? 375 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Map of Panama 4 

Panama Flag 10 

Huts on Line of Panama Road 82. 

Abandoned Machinery of the French 84» 

Along Panama Railroad 86. 

In Panama City 90. 

The Cathedral of Panama and Corner of the Park 92 

Ocean Front at Panama 162 

Ruins of Santo Domingo Church 172 

Ruined Tower of Old Panama 178 

Club House on the Sabanas 222 

The Congress Waiting for Lunch 224 

Taboga Island 232 

Square in Colon 266 

Washington Hotel, Street Front, Colon 268 

Path Leading Across the Lawn from Washington 

Hotel to the Beach 270 

Christ Church at Colon, Seen from a Corner of 

THE Hotel 274 

De Lesseps Palace at Christobal 276 

Monument to Columbus, Christobal 278 

Combination Store and Residence at Bocas Del 

ToRO 288 

A Bunch of Bananas 296 

Toucan, or Preacher Bird 304 , 



FOREWORD 



When I made up my mind to go to Panama, I 
could find no guide book. I had to depend for in- 
formation upon the advertising matter of the United 
Fruit Company, and upon the experience of a friend 
who had spent a few days there on business and who 
had seen nothing but swamps, rusty machinery, poly- 
glot politicians and gesticulating foreigners. I had 
no conception of what I was coming to, and had to 
be content with the reflection that he who has no 
books must learn by experience. On the other hand, 
it occurred to me that by recording the main facts 
and mental impressions of my trip, I might take the 
reader with me in spirit and impart to him such knowl- 
edge as would be of use to him if he went there, and 
of interest if he stayed at home, for he who has no 
experience must learn from books. 

As a physician attending the Pan-American Med- 
ical Congress, I felt that I was not competent to give 
the accurate general information sometimes found in 
guide books, and that I should be more concerned 
with climate and disease than the average writer; but 
on the other hand I hoped that, since my viewpoint 
would differ somewhat from that of the general run 
of writers, my impressions might not be unworthy of 

7 



g FOREWORD 

record, and might contribute in their way to a better 
understanding of the country and its customs. 

Some readers will think that the book is too full 
of appetizers and nightcaps, of diet and donnerwet- 
ter, and they will be right. But this is so because the 
narrative is honest and describes what was seen and 
felt instead of what ought to have been, or might have 
been, seen and felt. The busy majority care more 
about what was than what ought to have been. What 
was is truth; what ought to have been is fiction, and 
the worst kind. 

Many readers will conclude to wait until the Unit- 
ed States has finished the reconstruction of the cli- 
mate and country before going there, and will agree 
with me in saying that traveling in the tropics, like 
eating and sleeping, should be done at home. Indeed, 
the absurdity of the notion that it is necessary to leave 
home in order to study a guide book, should be taught 
to our travel-stricken public. Quarantine, yellow 
fever, yellow jaundice, black water fever, white swell- 
ing, elephantiasis, ague, anemia, neurasthenia, berri- 
berri, leprosy, dengue, dropsy, dysentery, drinking 
habits, and dozens of other dread diseases and denoue- 
ments lie in wait in the tropics. The romance of these 
things does not consist in exposing oneself to them, 
but in letting others do it, and of reading about it af- 
terward. 



PART I 

TO PANAMA 




PANAMA FLAG 



Part I 



CHAPTER I 

Chicago to New Orleans — Principally Chicago 

Chicago as a Starting Point and Business Center for Panama 
— How Food is Manufactured — Chicago Modesty — 
Report of the Commercial Club's Commission — Chicago 
the Center of Culture — The Illinois Central — Southern 
Surgical and Gynecological Society at Birmingham, the 
Mushroom City — The Banquet — Southern Hospitality 
and Wit — Extracts from Letter Home — Insurance 
Against Railway Accidents — The North Versus the 
South — Unveiling of a Statue — The Hahnemann Statue 
at Washington — New Orleans — Loss of Valuables — Over 
Charge at Hotel — A Machine-made Clerk — An Original 
Waiter — Southern Service — Southern Hospitality and 
Conviviality — The Beer Cure — Old English Standard — 
Comforting Reflection. 

Those who wish to go to Panama should start from 
Chicago, which is the most direct route to Panama. 
In order to get there all one has to do is to go south ; 
to return all one has to do is to come north. Chicago 
is at one end, Panama at the other. 

But Chicago is not only the natural starting place 
for Panama, it is the natural business center of the 
Panama Canal. Chicago sent a Chicago man to build 



12 TO PANAMA 

the canal, another Chicago man to boss it, others to 
plan it and others to provision it; and when the time 
comes will be ready with schemes to run it. Chicago 
believes that the canal must be constructed and con- 
ducted on a dual plan, the interoceanic and the ali- 
mentary — one for water and one for food. And she 
not only has the courage of her convictions, but the 
ability to assert them. 

Unjust reflections have been cast upon the food 
which Chicago kills, cures and puts up in cans for the 
canal, and a word of explanation is necessary. It has 
been intimated that packing-house boys and butchers 
sometimes lose their footing and disappear so quickly 
that they can not be recovered or recognized, or even 
indicated on the labels. But these facts lack confirma- 
tion and the packers deny them. They are things of 
the past. Indeed, it was a Chicago man who demon- 
strated to Congress that the food from all parts 
of the country was fit neither for us nor for Pan- 
ama. Thanks to his demonstrativeness, every- 
body now knows that until then pepper berries were 
made of tapioca kernels colored with lamp black ; that 
preserved cherries were bleached with acid, colored 
with poisonous aniline, and used to contaminate the 
cocktails of our fathers and dye the hair and habits 
of our mothers ; that the honey of our childhood was 
made of dead bees embalmed in sulphurous glucose; 
that Arabian coffee came from Brazil, and Italian 
olive oil from Mississippi cotton fields; that fancy 
liquors were made of ethyl alcohol and a chemical 
filler; and that breakfast foods were underweight in 



CHICAGO TO NEW ORLEANS 13 

the package and overweight in the stomach. We now 
know that there was neither a sneeze in the peppers 
nor a stomach ache in the berries, and that the only 
genuine full weight articles were the tin cans and 
pasteboard boxes. We have learned that lamp black, 
mineral acids, sulphite of soda, coal tar and other 
embalmatives were used in the manufacture of our 
popular delicatessen, that the manufacturers bought 
them at forty dollars per ton in five-ton lots, and that 
the United States supports from five to fifty times as 
many doctors per capita as other countries do. All 
this has become history, and a Chicago man made it. 

And now that Chicago has built her own canal, she 
is ready to give Uncle Sam the benefit of her unique 
experience. She has made water flow uphill once, and 
is ready to do it again. Chicago is always ready. She 
was ready with Wallace and Shonts. When Bigelow 
tried to paint the White House red, she was ready with 
Stevens. But what was the use? Her ways and the 
ways of Congress were different. Congress and the 
people who trust Congress have been bent upon finding 
fault and raising difiiculties. Canal dirt and critical dif- 
ficulties have been raised in equal quantities, but not 
with equal facility. Well-meaning foreigners, who 
work for the future and live in the past, advised a 
sea-level canal, knowing that Americans are good at 
making money and dirt fly, and that Chicago could 
use the dirt to fill up Lake Michigan. Chicago has 
known better all the time. The obviating of difficul- 
ties and doubts is a Chicago idea. But Chicago is 
not as yet appreciated; she must make herself heard. 



14 TO PANAMA 

However, she has the modesty of youth, and can 
wait. She who talks last, talks best. In the mean- 
time she is deepening her own canal, and will soon 
have navigable water between Chicago and Panama, 
and the world is bound to know it. Her motto is, 
Know Thyself ! — and she lives up to it. 

The following resume of the report of the Com- 
mercial Club's Panama commission appeared about 
a year ago in the Chicago Tribune : 

"The sanitary condition in the canal belt is perfect. 
The house sanitation is above criticism. 

"The work of building the canal is progressing with 
rapidity. 

"The labor is efficient, loyal and plentiful. 

"The esprit de corps of the whole force under Engi- 
neer Stevens was characterized as 'superb.' 

"Organization of the working force is without a 
flaw. 

"All the climatic dangers have been eliminated by 
the work of Dr. Gorgas, the sanitary expert. 

"Panama has been transformed into as healthful a 
place to live as any of the Southern states. 

"The equipment for digging the canal is of the 
highest type. 

"The only criticism made by the various members 
of the commission may be summed up as follows : 

"There is need for more schools. 

"There is need for more amusement for the work- 
ing force. 

"Too much of the food served to the diggers is 
canned. Not enough fresh vegetables are served. 



CHICAGO TO NEW ORLEANS t^ 

"Although these were the only criticisms heard, the 
members of the commission were not unanimous. 
Several held the belief that the food supply could not 
be improved. It was pointed out that the govern- 
ment is erecting schools rapidly and that there is now 
under construction several Y. M. C. A. buildings, 
which will afford the needed recreation." 

If that was so under Engineer Stevens, it is too 
bad he did not stay down there to keep it so, I hope 
that the Commercial Club commission were not mere 
optimists; that they did not mistake entertainments 
for attainments ; that the equatorial sun did not dazzle 
their Northern eyes; that nature is not deceiving us 
by a temporary show. The canal work needs Chicago 
eyes. 

Chicago is already recognized as the center of cul- 
ture of the United States, Fredr. P. Fish, of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Boston 
man, said at a banquet in Chicago: 

"Chicago is on the culture center 

For all time the Middle West as represented by Chi- 
cago will remain the center. We must graft the 
Western point of view on our Eastern ideas if we are 
to progress." Surely a wise man and a prophet has 
come out of the East. 

As Chicago is "the culture center" of the United 
States, the part she played at the last meeting of the 
Pan-American Medical Congress is not without sig- 
nificance. She sent the largest number of delegates of 
any city or nation and, if we may believe the evidence 
of their senses, ran the Congress. If she chooses she 



i6 TO PANAMA 

can organize a Pan-American Medical Congress all by 
herself that will run itself. She can furnish all of the 
scientific essays and discussions, the banquets and the 
banqueters, the reputation and the reverberation and, 
if necessary, the attendance and the talking. 

However, to come back to where we started from, 
the Illinois Central, it was that Chicago railway which 
provided the chief engineer who cut the red tape and 
started a revolution in methods. He cut the Gordian 
knot by cutting the whole business. The Illinois Cen- 
tral was, of course, the best railway for me to take 
for my trip to Panama, but as I was to attend the 
Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association on 
my way, my Chicago modesty suggested the patronage 
of a Southern railway, which to my surprise gave me 
as good a ride as the Illinois Central gives. The only 
fault I found with it was that its express trains were 
too accommodating. 

For Doctors Only. 

The association met at the interesting and mush- 
room-growing, mining and manufacturing center, 
Birmingham, Ala., the "New City of the New South," 
where men and money are said to make each other — 
doing it by modern methods, and in large quantities. 
In this Chicago of the South I hoped to get some 
pointers on medical, surgical and social customs and 
curatives appropriate to Southern climates, prepara- 
tory to trusting myself in the deadly tropics, where 
water is laden with germs, the air full of infection and 
meat is spoiled before it is fit to eat. 



emCAGO TO NEW ORLEANS 17 

And I was not disappointed in my expectations, for 
the profession of Birmingham, in return for the heavy 
feast of science afforded by the visitors, gave us a ban- 
quet which put our Northern ideaHzations and realiza- 
tions to shame. It was celebrated in the immense 
square banquet hall of Hotel Hillman. The tables were 
placed around the room near the walls, leaving a 
square space in the center about forty feet in diameter 
decorated to represent the Vale of Cashmere. This 
space was adorned with immense prostrate mirrors for 
water, a profusion of tubs of tropical plants for islands, 
electric flashlights above for twinkling stars, and the 
expansive toastmaster's face at one side to repre- 
sent the rising full moon. The flowers and lights 
and reflections in the central space, bordered by the 
ornate and sumptuously provisioned tables, constituted 
one of the most beautiful and intoxicating sights and 
experiences of the kind I had ever seen and partaken 
of, and led to the most exuberant five hours' flow of 
wit and humor of which I have any personal knowl- 
edge. 

The toastmaster was a physician who had developed 
into a politician and post-prandial celebrity, and who 
made witty speeches enough to render the occasion 
memorable, even if no one had responded to his toasts. 
He infused his political inversion and irresponsibil- 
ity of speech into the minds of those upon whom he 
called, so that the most solemn and scientific of our 
Northern laboratory plodders and surgical experts 
mixed the most unexpected and absurd exaggeration 
into their carefully prepared scientific and soporific 



1 8 TO PANAMA 

remarks. They forgot to be instructive and became en- 
tertaining. 

Even the Irish were outclassed. Hereafter I shall 
always speak of our Southern wit and humor as the 
most spontaneous and exuberant in the world. The 
North is witty because it is partly Irish, the South is 
wittier because it is entirely American. 

For Women Only. 
Extract from Letter Home. 

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1904, 
My dear : 

The scientific exercises have just concluded and 
before dressing for the banquet I will make use of the 
few moments between the diurnal reading and the 
nocturnal eating of articles, to inform you that you 
have lost five thousand dollars. Whenever I have 
insured my life before trusting my fate to the reckless 
railway management which this country cultivates, 
and which costs from one to two lives a day in demon- 
strating how two trains can occupy the same space 
at the same time, I have found that my life has been 
spared and my estate has lost the six thousand dollars 
of insurance money for which I had contracted and 
paid. I have survived so often that I am beginning to 
have faith in the insuring method as a life preserver. 
I know of nothing else that has protected me from the 
ax of those public executioners facetiously called rail- 
ways. If the government would only give attention to 
the regulation of railway accidents as it does to the 
regulation of railway rates, some good might be done. 
Railway rates are simply ruinous ; railway recklessness 
is simply regretable. 

I am well, excepting a stiffness and soreness in my 
left ankle, which reminds me that I got away just in 



CHICAGO TO NEW ORLEANS 19 

time from the frozen North, where people eat and 
freeze too much and get rheumatism and appendicitis, 
to visit the Sunny South, where people eat and drink 
too much and get rheumatism and appendicitis. In 
the North we think that the cold makes us healthy and 
hardy, while in the south people think that appetizers 
and night-caps keep them healthy and happy. And I 
am temporarily inclined to think that the Southerners 
must be half right, for my ankle is getting better al- 
ready. 

After a most interesting session devoted to the dis- 
cussion of obscure and difficult scientific facts and 
fancies, the society adjourned to the public park to 
unveil the statue of the late Wm. Elias Davis, the 
eminent Birmingham surgeon who founded the 
Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association. It 
is the second statue that has been erected to a private 
individual in Alabama, and is also about the second 
attempt of the kind by our profession in the United 
States, the statue of the signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, at Washington 
being the first. There is also at Washington a statue 
of Hahnemann, the originator of the once popular 
fad, homeopathy, placed there by a few fad fellows 
before they faded out. 

But it is growing dark and the band is playing and 
the festivities are about to begin. We must eat and 
drink and get merry, which is the lot of the living. 

For Children Only. 

Extract from Letter Home. 

New Orleans, Saturday, Dec. 17, 1904. 

Here I am in "Ne Awleens," where Creoles and 
crocodiles grow. At least, here is all that is left of 
me. Umbrella, railroad ticket, handkerchief, necktie 
fastener, appetite, digestion, etc., were lost on the way. 



20 TO PANAMA 

My valise was carried away in my car, which was 
quietly detached from the train at Montgomery v/hile 
I was walking about the station hunting for my appe- 
tite. However, I inquired and ran about and caught 
the runaway car and recovered my bag and my appe- 
tite, but not my umbrella. An honest umbrella does 
not exist. Who remembers ever having had a lost 
one come back, or a found one go back? My return 
ticket was taken up by the conductor at bedtime but 
was not returned to me in the morning when I arrived 
in Birmingham. It was discovered on the floor in 
the train, and left at the ticket office at New Orleans 
by a stranger. New Orleans has one more hon- 
est man than our other large cities, which are dis- 
eased spots on the earth's surface, where human para- 
sites predominate. 

However, the railway officials are not the only 
absent-minded men in the South. The hotel clerk at 
Birmingham charged me for four days instead of two. 
I should merely have considered the hotel a high- 
priced one had not a friend told me that he had been 
charged for three days instead of two. But after 
being corrected, my bill was as much too small as at 
first it was too large. The clerk was made in Bir- 
mingham where everything is done by machinery. To 
get the best service it was necessary to know how to 
run him. He was one of those original characters who 
do everything differently — and indifferently. 

When I went to breakfast the morning after the 
banquet, I ordered nothing but coffee and rolls. The 
negro waiter, who was another original, evidently 
had also been up late the night before, for when I 
gave my order he gaped frightfully, and I dodged. 
He filled it (not his mouth) correctly, but took it to 
a fat man at the next table, who had ordered a real 
American breakfast and who scorned to accept mere 
coffee and rolls, although he looked as if he needed 



CHICAGO TO NEW ORLEANS 21 

much less breakfast than I did. I then ordered a 
glass of water without any ice in it, and this was also 
taken to the large gentleman, who was an ice drinker 
and refused it. When I had drunk my coffee, glanced 
at my rolls and paid my bill, my change also went to 
the stranger; but it also was not enough for him. If 
I had ordered a large breakfast and had thus made 
the waiter work, or if I had carried a pistol within 
sight, he would probably have brought things to me 
when he forgot to whom they belonged. He bore me 
no ill-will, however. He was a good waiter, as are 
all Southern waiters, if only one knows how to keep 
them awake and interested, and excuse mistakes. I 
think we will have to send some of our colored wait- 
ers from the North down there. 

The Southerners are, however, far ahead of us in 
hospitality, and it is in keeping with this virtue that 
they drink too often. I do not think that they drink 
for the sake of drinking, as often as do many of our 
Northern indulgers, nor do they often drink to get 
drunk. They drink to be hospitable and encourage 
one another and whet their appetite. Whether they 
are thus socially farther advanced than we, and we 
will follow them, or whether the comparatively large 
percentage of abstainers in the North is an advance, 
and they will follow us, is a conundrum. I suppose 
that they really drink out of conservatism. To ab- 
stain would be too radical a change. If liquor could 
have been emancipated with the slaves and sent over 
the border to Canada, where they use it to warm their 
toes and melt their tongues, it would have been better 
for the South and for us. Perhaps the increase in 
the consumption of beer in the United States may be- 
come our salvation. It means less alcohol and less 
drunkenness, more gemiitlichkeit and less strenuous 
conviviality, more hobnob livers and fewer concrete 
kidneys. 



22 TO PANAMA 

There is hope, however, for Southerner and North- 
erner and Canadian if we may credit an observation 
of Sydney Smith, made in England a hundred years 
ago. While speaking of the improvements he had ob- 
served during his lifetime he said: 

"I forgot to add . . . that even in the best 
society one third of the gentlemen at least were always 
drunk." 

The following quotation of Edward Eggleston is 
taken from an editorial in American Medicine, Janu- 
ary 27, 1906: 

"It was estimated early in the eighteenth century 
that about one building in every ten in Philadelphia 
was used in some way for the sale of rum, and in 
Massachusetts, Governor Belcher was afraid that the 
colony would 'be deluged with spirituous liquors.' " 

How comforting for us to know that our ancestors, 
from a temperance standpoint, were worse than we 
are, and that our children in the natural course of 
events will be better than we are. 



CHAPTER II 

Getting Off 

The United Fruit Company's Ships — Delay — Brushing up 
in Spanish — Getting off — The Musical Engineer — Spil- 
ling Soup — Threatened Arson — A Resolve Never to Take 
Too Much Liquor Again — The Pilot — Four Miles in Two 
Hours — The Captain's Wink — Chicago as a Joke — The 
Jetty — Unexhilarating Speed — The Zigzag Habit. 

From New Orleans the United Fruit Company sends 
a steamer every week to Colon and Bocas del Toro, in 
Panama, and one to Port Limon, in Costa Rica. Most 
of the boats are small and better adapted to the ac- 
commodation and comfort of bananas than of human 
beings. However, those who are poor sailors can, 
by arranging dates and taking one of the large (?) 
ships, get to Panama almost as comfortably as from 
New York, and in a little over half the time. If one 
is a good equilibrist and loves solitude, there is even 
an advantage in taking one of the smaller fruit boats, 
for they ordinarily have so few passengers that one 
has almost the whole boat to oneself — and needs it. 
Mr. M. J. Dempsey, the traffic manager at New Or- 
leans of the United Fruit Company, was very accom- 
modating and painstaking, both in corresponding with 
me and in placing me after I arrived at New Orleans. 
The company is better than its boats. 

23 



24 ' TO PANAMA 

Having missed the Friday boat for Colon, I made 
the best of my misfortune by feasting on fresh oys- 
ters, French cafe-au-lait and French water-rolls. In 
fact, I was benefited by the short delay, as the S. S. 
Limon, the newest and largest in the service, sailed 
on Monday morning directly for Port Limon, offering 
me an opportunity of visiting San Jose, the capital of 
Costa Rica, the so-called Paris of Central America, 
and of avoiding the crowd of doctors who were going 
later. In this case I was particularly anxious to avoid 
the otherwise congenial crowd, because I wanted to 
get away from English-speaking people during the 
four or five days on the water. Thus I would have a 
chance to brush up my Spanish by being forced to 
speak it to the Central American passengers, the offi- 
cers, steward, sailors, etc. I would then be better 
prepared to converse with the South American doc- 
tors. But when I went aboard I found that the S. S. 
Limon was an old Glasgow ship with a new name, and 
had a Canadian captain and Jamaican crew. The 
passengers were all Americans and English, and I 
was the only one on board who could speak, or cared 
to speak, a word of Spanish. I was, therefore, obliged 
to brush up my Spanish without a brush. 

We got off at II A. M. There were several pas- 
sengers standing about on deck gazing listlessly at the 
negroes on the dock, — but not a friend of any of us 
could be seen, not a smile or wave of hand or flutter 
of handkerchief. It seemed quite doleful not even to 
see a friend or relative of some one else. 

The only incident that varied the monotony came 



GETTING OFF 25 

near being an accident. It was the arrival of one of 
the engineers, who was a man of unusually refined 
features for one in his station of life, but who was in 
such a happy state of mind that had it not been for 
the assistance of his peers he would have walked off 
the gangplank into the water, for he took two steps 
and stoops sideways to every one forward. He was 
softly singing, "For to-night we'll merry, merry be; 
to-morrow we'll be shober." I felt relieved when I 
saw that he was safely aboard where liquor was not 
sold, and I realized for the first time what a great 
blessing ships were to sailors. As soon as he was 
safely over the gangplank he straightened up and 
said, "I'm the besht eng'neer aboard. I can run an 
engine better'n I can walk a plank. I've been drink- 
ing like the but I'm not drunk, I'm a Christian 

scientist, I am. I only think I'm drunk (hie)." 

About an hour afterward as I was wandering about 
exploring the ship, I came across him balancing him- 
self along on his way from the kitchen to the mess 
room, carrying a big iron pot of greasy soup and spill- 
ing it liberally. Upon seeing me, he smiled blandly 
and said: 

"Good shoup this, ain't it?" 

"Yes, I see it is. If you can eat that you're all 
right." 

"Oh, I'm aw right (hie) !" he said, as he allowed 
about a pint of the soup to spill upon the deck. "It's 
the shoup that's gone wrong. It's half seas over aw- 
ready." 

After a moment's pause he began again: "Is this 
your firsht trip to the tropics?" 



26 TO PANAMA 

"Yes, I want to see them before I die." 

"Better wait till you die. It's a — 11 of a place for 
a live man. I'm going to set the ship on fire at five 
o'clock. I've been drinking, but I'm as shober as 
blue blazes now, and I'm going to shelebrate — she- 
(hic)elebrate." 

Seeing my chance to do some missionary work, I 
asked him why he didn't join a temperance club, and 
thus relieve himself of all temptation to drink. 

"No club for me, sir. Had enough clubbing when 
I's a boy. Rather be hit by a cocktail. W'iskey's the 
life of temper'nce clubs. Keeps 'em going (hie). 
W'iskey causes more good resolutions than bad ones — 
makes people wish to be better. An' what's better'n 
that?" 

He stopped talking and stood grinning at me as I 
moved slowly away and faintly returned his smile. I 
then and there resolved never to take too much liquor 
again in any form. All men should sign the pledge 
before they die, as I expect to do. But as it was, I 
feared I might never have a chance to drink anything 
but Mississippi River water after five o'clock, when 
the ship was to burn. However, I calculated that 
since we would not be out of the river and away from 
land until six or seven o'clock, which would be from 
one to two hours after the fire, we could all save our- 
selves with life-preservers. So I went to my state- 
room and finding that my life-preservers had real 
cork in them, instead of old-fashioned pig-iron, tied 
one to my valise and two to my trunk. Then I went 
back on deck and, being prepared for the danger, soon 
forgot all about it. 



GETTING OFF 27 

After speeding around many river-bends for two 
hours we went down to lunch, and the pilot, who ate 
with us, told us among other things that we were just 
four miles from New Orleans, across country. I 
told him not to hurry so, but to remember that "the 
more haste the less speed ;" that on the Chicago River 
we would have traveled many miles in two hours, and 
that in Chicago we could walk faster than this boat ran ; 
we could walk four miles in one hour. The pilot 
thought that I was in earnest and winked at the 
captain, who was of English descent and knew that a 
wink meant a joke. So he winked at both of us, and 
asked no questions. I afterward learned that the 
mention of Chicago was the joke they meant. 

Although it was the third week of December, the 
shores were green and the scenery was interesting all 
the way, and the weather was warm enough to enable 
us to enjoy it. The delta presented the appearance 
of numerous small lakes with strips of meadow land 
between them, instead of branching streams as marked 
on the maps. We saw some fine plantations and a fine 
herd of cattle. Indeed, the district appeared to be 
an ideal one for raising cattle, as grass and water 
were plentiful, shelter unnecessary and fences super- 
fluous. 

Soon after six o'clock we came to the outlet which 
was indicated by a jetty on our left and the open sea 
ahead. The jetty was a pier built where the current 
could strike it and hollow out its own channel, the 
same as it does all along the river when it strikes the 
banks at the bends. A lighthouse and searchlight 



28 TO PANAMA 

were, of course, on the end of the pier, which was a 
much smaller and simpler structure than I had con- 
sidered necessary. The simple device was, as usual, 
the successful one. 

The pilot got off here, but stopped and shook hands 
with me, and asked if I had enjoyed the ride. He told 
me that we had made one of the quickest runs to the 
mouth of the river on record for a fruit beat. I said : 
"As far as I've got I can't conscientiously say that I 
am exhilarated by the speed. Bananas that want to 
ripen while they ride can't complain, however. The 
river takes two dips sideways to every one forward 
like the best engineer who came aboard half seas over, 
and I can't comprehend how a man as sober and 
steady as you seem to be can keep the ship going that 
way without forgetting himself at times and letting it 
take a straight and proper step or two occasionally 
and run into the shore." 

"Well, it's this way," he answered. "We become 
so accustomed to the zigzag course that zigzagging 
becomes a habit, and we find it hard to keep straight." 

"Yes," I said, "and the engineers are acquiring 
the zigzag habit, too." 

As I did not bring in Chicago he didn't see any joke. 



CHAPTER III 

At Sea 

The Weather — Packing the Stomach — A Diatribe on Cooks 
and Cooking — Uncooked Food as a Diet — Survival of 
the Fittest — New England Diet — First Impressions and 
Facts — The Passengers — The Englishman — A Phantom 
Laugh — The Stewardess — Beef Tea — A Recreation 
Famine — The Universal Enjoyment — An Old English 
Table d'Hote — White Ducks and Rain — Highballs and 
High Life — Bad Effects of Water — A Temperate Cap- 
tain and Crew — Scenery and Poetry — How People Get 
What They Want — The Southern Cross and Others — 
Advice. 

From Diary. 

Tuesday, December 20th. — Smooth sea. Weather 
cool but pleasant. The temperature at New Orleans 
was about twenty degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 
at Chicago, and this afternoon is nearly ten degrees 
warmer than it was at New Orleans yesterday. We 
are headed almost due south and expect soon to 
breathe the balmy air of the Caribbean Sea. It is so far 
a pleasant winter experience to wake up each morning 
and find the air about ten degrees warmer than on the 
day before. 

What a change from busy Chicago life it is to have 
nothing to do all day long but read novels and talk 
small talk, and linger leisurely over one's meals with 

29 



36 TO PANAMA 

strangers gathered together from various parts of 
Anglo-Saxondom. We Hngered over the food to-day 
until we had eaten enough for two dinners. It was 
not that we felt the need of a double dinner, but 
largely out of a subconscious imitation of each other. 
When among eaters do as eaters do, is the philosophy 
of it. There is no place where people enjoy and un- 
derstand the packing and filling up of their adjustable 
and dilatable stomachs better than on shipboard. When 
they pack their trunks and bags they do not overload 
them, for they know that there is danger of straining 
or bursting them, and they do not wet and soak things 
down in their trunks in order to make them pack 
tighter, as they do in their stomachs. They know 
that the stomach, which was not made by hands, will 
not burst. 

But eating can not unfortunately be made to fill in 
the whole of our time, even on shipboard and with 
saltwater appetites. If we had four stomachs, like a 
cow, and could devote all of our time either to eating, 
or the chewing of cuds, how simple life would become 
for many of us. Idle men would be kept from mis- 
chief and idle women from worry. Our enjoyment 
would be simple and continual, sanitary and convivial. 
However, our mode of living and the economy of our 
functions are such that we can not utilize much bulky 
nourishment, as do our bovine models, whose heads 
and limbs are mere appendages to their stomachs ; and 
our methods of preparing food are such that we do 
not have to do the work with our teeth. We thus lose 
much of the benefit as well as harmless pleasure that 



AT SEA 31 

animals derive from the preparation of their own 
meals. Our lips are shrinking and our jaws degen- 
erating for want of work. 

There is much to be said in favor of doing your 
cooking in your own mouth. Mouths are often the 
most unclean of cavities, yet who would not rather 
trust his own mouth than the methods of the average 
kitchen blunderer with her germ-laden, all-invading 
hands, tasting spoons, wandering hairs, dusty dishes, 
coughs, colds, salt rheums, etc. No one has seen the 
cook drinking out of the water bottle, tasting the food, 
and handling the salt, the dough, the waste-pail, the 
dish cloth, the berries and the bread with fingers that 
are licked instead of being washed every time she 
handles these things and her hair, but would wish to 
possess the jaw and juices of an animal to enable him to 
save the wages, waste and culinary wantonness of a 
cook ; and avoid the appendicitis, gastric ulcer, fer- 
mentation, diabetes, Bright's disease, entero-colitis 
and acid fermentation that have developed with the 
development of the art of eating. Modern cooking 
is a bold and unscrupulous attempt to create, by means 
of variously flavored, complicated mixtures, a desire 
for artificial food, instead of depending upon a nat- 
ural appetite for a few simple articles, such as exists 
throughout the animal kingdom where irresponsible 
cooks have not interfered. 

It is an open question whether the human system 
is not adapted to the consumption of much more un- 
cooked food than is at present allowed, and whether 
the cooking in many instances does not destroy fer- 



32 TO PANAMA 

ments that aid digestion, and does not thus render the 
digestion of foods more difficult or imperfect. Fresh 
raw milk is more nourishing and more easily digested 
by normal digestive organs than cooked milk, and this 
is true of eggs, oysters, beef, cheese, tomatoes, but- 
ter, etc. Celery, radishes, cucumbers, cresses, pars- 
ley, asparagus, onions, honey, fresh and dried fruits, 
nuts, aromatics, ripe olives, olive oil, smoked and 
dried meats, besides many other herbs and fruits that 
are habitually eaten raw in warm and tropical coun- 
tries, ought to enter more extensively into our diet 
and be made to greatly reduce the amount of kitchen 
mixtures that now tempts us toward an overfed ane- 
mia, dyspeptic insomnia, toxic obesity and premature 
death. The above mentioned foods constitute an am- 
ple dietary for the average individual. By cooking 
we aim to facilitate and quicken the digestion of food, 
and render it more complete, forgetting that a larger 
amount of undigested debris might maintain a more 
normal action of the intestines. 

Food kept for consumption in the winter time in 
cold climates, or in arid districts far away from its 
production, would in part require cooking, but that 
made of grains could be prepared at laboratories in 
a dry, unchangeable, sterile form, while some of the 
animal and fatty foods could be partly predigested 
and preserved for invalids. In fact, a diet could be 
planned that would render the kitchen unnecessary 
except as a place to make ready a hot drink or to 
warm food already prepared and preserved according 
to the dictates of science instead of by the art of 



AT SEA 33 

uneducated, uncultured, unclean, bad-tempered, hap- 
hazard cooks. 

The political crime of 1890 was the putting of sugar 
on the free list. It was a covert attack upon the 
women and children of the country by rendering it 
easier for them to slowly poison themselves i. e., to 
sweeten themselves to death. A relish for sweets has 
been given man to lead him to eat fruits and to chew 
his starchy food until it develops that sweet taste 
which indicates beginning digestion. It is this relish 
for sweet that leads herbivorous animals to chew their 
food so thoroughly. That a taste for sweets is not 
intended to lead people to eat artificial sweets is evi- 
dent from the fact that, excepting honey, which is 
meant for bees, there is no such concentrated sweet 
as sugar to be found in nature. But man began to 
extract the sugar from the sugar cane, the beet and 
the grape and eat it in large quantities in its concen- 
trated, unnatural form, and to put it in food that, 
without it, would not be relished, and which, there- 
fore, should not be eaten until hunger gave its relish. 
As a consequence he has become the victim of salt 
rheums, pimples, hives and other agonies of itching 
and ugliness. 

Sugar is the devil conjured by man to entertain his 
sweetheart or wife, and keep his children quiet. Sug- 
ar is the serpent of a civilized Eden. He corrupts 
the human body before it is developed, and after. He 
squanders the pocket money and perverts the appe- 
tite of the fairer half of humanity, until it thinks that 
it would starve without his support, and refuses to 
3 



34 TO PANAMA 

nourish itself without his aid. Let him be banished 
from the pubHc view and be locked up again in the 
cane and the beet where he can be enjoyed only in 
harmless attenuations and in digestible quantities. A 
little of the devil goes a great way. Too much of him 
breeds disease and doctors to condemn and conduct 
us to the grave. 

■ But the self-denial of such a return to nature and 
abandonment of the pleasure of eating a variety of 
complicated, fancifully flavored and abnormally 
tempting food mixtures is hardly to be expected of a 
gastronomically perverted humanity. Humanity 
knows enough to tempt itself, and it will do so. The 
rapidly multiplying wealthy class has the means of 
over-indulging itself, and will make use of them, and 
the common lot will follow suit. Deterioration, de- 
generation and individual extinction will be the logi- 
cal result. Survival of the fittest thus becomes a mat- 
ter of appetite. To kill oneself by degrees within the 
three-score-and-ten is becoming the easiest and most 
agreeable of occupations ; much easier and more en- 
joyable than slowly dieting oneself to death, as Luigi 
Cornaro did at the age of 103 years. He ate but little 
here below, but ate that little long. 

There are many who believe that what is generally 
adopted as a custom by the mass of the people must 
be right, and that since we have been eating as we 
now do for a long time, and are longer lived than 
formerly, we should continue doing so. Apropos of 
this I will quote from the writings of Volney, a 
Frenchman who traveled in the United States seventy 
years ago : 



AT SEA 35 

"I will venture to say that if a prize were proposed 
for the scheme of a regimen most calculated to injure 
the stomach, the teeth and the health in general, no 
better could be invented than that of Americans. In 
the morning at breakfast, they deluge their stomach 
with a quart of hot water, impregnated with tea, or 
slightly so with coffee, that is mere colored water ; 
and they swallow, almost without chewing, hot bread, 
half-baked toast soaked in butter, cheese of the fattest 
kind, slices of salt or hung beef, ham, etc., all of which 
are nearly insoluble. At dinner, they have boiled 
pastes under the name of puddings, and the fattest 
are esteemed the most delicious ; all their sauces, even 
for roasted beef, are melted butter ; their turnips and 
potatoes swim in lard, butter, or fat; under the 
name of pumpkin pie their pastry is nothing but a 
greasy paste, never sufficiently baked; to digest these 
substances they take tea almost instantly after dinner, 
making it so strong that it is absolutely bitter to the 
taste, in which state it affects the nerves so powerfully 
that even the English find it brings on more obstinate 
restlessness than coffee. Supper again introduces salt 
meats or oysters. As Chastelux says, the whole day 
passes in heaping indigestions on one another; and 
to give tone to the poor, relaxed and wearied stom- 
ach, they drink Madeira rum, French brandy, gin or 
malt spirits, which complete the ruin of the nervous 
system." 

Man seems to be the only animal that doesn't know 
how to eat. But as we have apparently eaten without 
knowing how, and have been dyspeptic for the seven- 



36 TO PANAMA 

ty years since Volney wrote, and probably for seven- 
ty years before that, why not eat in this way and re- 
main dyspeptic for the next seventy years? We have 
been dyspeptic so long that proper food and normal 
function might prove a disastrous change of environ- 
ment to our stomachs. Innovations are apt to prove 
dangerous. Let us be conservative, and do right with 
caution. This precocious, overgrown, youthful coun- 
try needs above all to be conservative, and above all 
wants conserves. 

But since the agreeable gustatory occupation of 
doing the cooking in nature's individual kitchen is 
denied us, we passengers are at the mercy of the ship's 
cook. I wonder how clean he and his materials are. 
And as the process of swallowing and washing down 
his mixtures can not be made to occupy all of our wak- 
ing hours, we will have to sandwich in a few games 
of cards, a few cotillions, cigars, siestas and, at ap- 
propriate times, a few turns of mal-de-mer. 
^ Wednesday, December 21st. — How different stran- 
gers often are from the first impression they 
make upon us. If we revealed ourselves upon first 
sight just as we really are in this democratic coun- 
try, in which the poor are rich and the rich poor, 
according to the mutations of the markets, and where 
we can not always distinguish a Brahmin from a 
blowhard, we would be quickly divided into social 
castes, and would find new levels. Even in tra- 
ditional monarchies a large proportion of the nobility 
are Brahmins by birth only. The fabric of society 
is woven out of lies, for lies are not words pronounced 



AT SEA 



37 



but impressions produced. In fact, all the world's a 
lie, and men and women play their parts therein. The 
word falsehood is merely the name for a feminine 
fabric which conceals the hair that nature made to 
conceal the head. Our customs encourage false 
hoods, false hair, false teeth and false modesty, for 
who would marry a person without hood, hair, teeth 
or modesty? Better dead than without them. Better 
to have lived and lied than not to have lied at all. 

All of the passengers of the S. S. Limon are first- 
class liars, I mean first-impression liars, like the rest 
of the world. I have constructed two descriptive 
columns to show the impression they produced upon 
me at the first meal and the facts as I have since 
learned them. 



First Impression. 

Captain is an English- 
man. 

An Englishman and his 
wife traveling for 
pleasure, probably on 
their honeymoon. 

American army captain 
going to some post in 
the tropics with his 
wife. 



Facts. 
Captain is a Canadian. 

Englishman with wife 
returning to Costa 
Rica, where he is in 
business. Married many 
years. 

Insurance agent and cap- 
tain of militia going to 
Costa Rica to look after 
mining interests. Is 
president and organizer 
of the company. 



38 



TO PANAMA 



First Impression. 
Emaciated young man 
traveling for his health. 
Either a dyspeptic or 
consumptive. 

A Spaniard going to his 
tropical home with his 
daughter, a dark young 
lady. 



Facts. 

Relative of insurance 
agent and secretary of 
mining company. 
Starved from overeat- 
ing- 

An engineer with a Scotch 

brogue, superintending 
a new ice plant just put 
in the ship. No relation 
to dark young lady, 
who is the lady's maid 
of the wife of the 
Englishman. 



We also have at the table a young American who 
is a clerk in the offices of the United Fruit Company 
at Port Limon, the second mate and the purser. The 
English couple and the insurance agent have been in 
the tropics before and have learned not to drink ship 
water or Central American water, and keep the two 
waiters busy bringing beer, wine, highballs, Apolli- 
naris water and ginger ale, somewhat to the incon- 
venience of the rest of us who have to await the 
return of the waiters with these articles before we 
can be served with our food. 

The Englishman sits in a corner of the smoking- 
room and smokes a pipe after each meal. While 
smoking these three pipefuls, which seem to be his 
daily allowance, he studies American history out of 
Winston Churchill's novel, "The Crossing." He is 



At sea 39 

one of those practical Englishmen who believe that 
he who laughs last laughs best. He asked me this 
morning why the United States did not keep Cuba 
when she first had her; and I could not convince 
him that it was neither expedient nor honorable to 
annex the island at that time. In fact, before we got 
through with our discussion I felt like apologizing 
to him for our honorable action in the matter, for 
doing our duty as we saw it. The English believe 
in our duty as they see it. He considered our dealings 
with Cuba as a huge American joke, a subject for 
the pen of a Mark Twain or a W. W. Jacobs, and that 
a keener sense of humor would have saved us from 
the mistake. 

Thursday, December 22nd. — We have three flesh 
and blood visible ladies aboard, and a stewardess. 
A stewardess usually passes for flesh and blood 
also. This one, however, is a sort of phantom 
lady who is always heard, but seldom seen. Until 
this morning she was nothing but a laugh. She 
had not, to my personal knowledge, been seen on 
deck. She, however, had frequently made herself 
known by her laugh which every once in a while 
would ring out, or rather up, from below like a 
chime of tiny bells started by the wind, and making 
melody because they couldn't help it. When we 
feel well we are stirred up by the laugh and feel 
like joining in, but when the waves are swinging our 
heads around, it sounds unnatural and phantom-like, 
and strikes an unsympathetic chord in our pneumo- 
gastric nerve fibers. I had heard the laugh many 



40 TO PANAMA 

times and had enjoyed it until this morning, when I 
was lying back in my steamer chair practicing Chris- 
tian Science without any comfort. Every few moments 
the ship would give a lurch, and so nearly turn over 
that it seemed as if it could not right up, and the 
ladies would say o-oh ! and the phantom laugh would 
be heard coming up from below. I took to shutting 
my dizzy eyes and saying mentally: "Go over, if you 
wish, old banana box! If only my stomach will keep 
right side out until we go down and I become uncon- 
scious ! — Laugh on, young lady ! It's all right for an 
invisible stewardess who hasn't any nerves in her 
stomach (if she has one) and nothing but haw-haws 
in her brain (if she has one) to laugh, for I can't help 
it. But even Solomon said that there was a time to 
laugh and a time not to laugh." 

While I was thus moralizing the laugh suddenly 
appeared on deck in coiffe and corset, smiling and 
balancing airily while the ship tried to dump it over- 
board. It was a white-aproned, pink-skinned, flaxen- 
haired, pleb-featured apparition, as plump and un- 
phantom-like as flesh and blood with a cockney ac- 
cent could be. It was searching for sick women, and 
immediately spied me. It stopped and said: 

" 'Ave you 'ad any breakfast, sir?" 

"Yes," I said, "I have had breakfast all of my life, 
thank you." 

"\Von't you 'ave a cup of beef tea, sir? It works 
like a charm." 

"No, thank you. I don't want anything that will 
work. You give us plenty to eat, but you don't keep 



AT SEA 41 

it down. Dieting is the best thing for ship food. I 
was told to diet several years ago, and I wish I'd 
done it. The opportunity has come now." 

It smiled at me as if I was a spoiled child, and 
balanced about among the ladies in a way that made 
my head swim, until finally it disappeared. 

In a little while it sent up a cup of beef tea by the 
shuffling, cross-eyed, colorless, albino-haired, cockney 
steward. The stuff looked good, however, and I 
braced up and drank the health of the flower of the 
English meadows that had blossomed on the beauti- 
ful land and now bloomed on the blooming sea, and 
felt better. The beef tea suffered no harm, and I no 
longer wished to be thrown overboard. In fact, with- 
in two hours afterward I went down to the dining- 
room and ate leather and doepaste, and drank luke- 
warm mud-decoction with a favorable termination. 

Friday, December 22,rd. — We arrive at Port Limon 
to-morrow morning, and so far no Spanish lessons, 
no cotillions, no cake-walks, no negro minstrels, no 
shuffle-board, no music, not even poker or pools on 
the daily run ; nothing doing but the moonlight tete-a- 
tetes of the United Fruit Company's clerk from 
Limon and the lady's maid from London. He evi- 
dently regards her as edible. Watching them with 
parental interest and sympathetic reminiscence is the 
only recreation we have had except eating at odd 
meals when Neptune happened to be napping. Per- 
haps it is youth rather than opportunity that we lack, 
for as people grow older they lose the cleverness and 
skill as well as the illusions necessary for the enjoy- 



42 TO PANAMA 

ment of the recreations of their youth, except in eat- 
ing. The enjoyment of eating, illusions and all, be- 
longs to all ages and all animals. It constitutes the 
first evidence of our animal intelligence and the last 
senile flourish of our physical nature. When all other 
incentives to enjoyment and hilarity are gone for- 
ever, people can laugh and joke over their food like 
children. Having consumed the spirits of youth 
they resort to the spirits of wine, and the result is 
a brilliant flicker. 

It is interesting to watch a small party of English 
people of uncertain age and social station at a Con- 
tinental table d'hote dinner, as I once had the pleas- 
ure of doing: — 

At soup a fortified and funereal quiet and, to the 
young and frivolous table-d'hoters about them, an 
apparently reproachful demeanor, a social asceticism. 
Such dignity and decorum as is found only among 
the English, whose recreations and social functions 
are formal duties. 

Over the fish, occasional premeditated remarks such 
as courtesy demands, and a solemn sipping of wine 
at appropriate intervals. 

Over the third course, slight relaxation of features 
and small bits of conversation, interspersed with 
more frequent and informal sipping of wine. 

Over the fourth course, much less modulation of 
voice and considerable talking, with an occasional 
easily comprehended joke followed by generous ap- 
plause. General emptying of bottles and drinking 
of toasts. A touch of nature makes the whole room 
grin. 



AT SEA 43 

Over dessert, frequent flashing of fire-cracker jokes 
extinguished in laughter. A leaning over cordiality 
and unrestrained communicativeness regardless of 
appearances. An astonishing climax of gayety. The 
tables are turned. Foreigners grow silent and look 
on with wonder. 

Disappearance of ladies and retirement of the men 
to the smoking-room or porches for a congenial ex- 
change of confidences and a forgetfulness of cares and 
responsibilities. Social mellowness slowly hardening 
back into desiccated conversation. 

The elders have had their daily round of recreation, 
the only kind they still excel at, and are again models 
of dignity and decorum for the younger generation 
to respect, but not to emulate. 

Such an insular touch of nature I have not, of 
course, observed on our boat. The above was merely 
one of those observations of former times that come 
to my mind during the long hours of sitting and gazing 
at the tireless sea. Continental table-d'hoters become 
demonstrative over their wine, but do not taper on 
and taper off like the English. One expects foreign- 
ers to gesticulate and be undignified from first to last. 

We are in the Caribbean Sea "alright," with trade 
winds to tame us, choppy seas to chafe us, and sudden 
showers to shift us. The officers and the militia cap- 
tain are parading in dazzling white duck suits, in 
which they are obliged to run under cover every little 
while from the rain. A mist appears over the horizon 
and in a few minutes overtakes us in the form of a 
drenching rain, causing the officers on duty to put on 



44 TO PANAMA 

their raincoats, and those off duty to come in and be 
treated to highballs. This is their high life, and makes 
them accept with thankfulness and thanks whatever 
and whichever comes. Water is man's greatest ene- 
my as well as friend in the Caribbean. It drives 
through the canvas awnings, steals into the state- 
rooms, rusts steel buttons and umbrella frames, ruins 
clothing, spoils cigars and gives men a taste for 
liquor. 

The captain, however, is temperate and has none 
of the sailors' vices, as no man who lives with the 
bottom of the sea constantly under his feet should 
have. This nautical peculiarity of the captain has a 
good effect upon the crew, and is a recommendation 
to the United Fruit Company. It enables him to drink 
with impunity when alone with the passengers. He 
believes that only temperance men should be allowed 
to drink. He believes that, being temperate, drink 
does him no harm, and that he who thinks like a gen- 
tleman will drink like a gentleman. The "besht" en- 
gineer is also temperate, for the captain sees to it that 
drink does not harm him either. The poor fellow has 
had nothing alcoholic since we left New Orleans. 
But he will get his bottle of beer with his Christmas 
dinner to remind him of the cause of all the happi- 
ness he has ever had. Our captain is so opposed to 
intemperance that he will not keep a man in the crew 
who is addicted to drink. The fate of the best engi- 
neer is therefore settled, and he is taking his last voy- 
age on the S. S. Limon. But he has not had his last 
good time off the S. S. Limon by any means. 



AT SEA 45 

We have beautiful sunsets and sunrises, although 
they are not very different from those in Illinois ex- 
cept that the colors are more crude and garish. The 
softened, hazy, fumigated, terra cotta hues of the 
Chicago sunsets are unknown here. It is necessary 
to go to Chicago to see them. On bright and clear 
days the Caribbean sky and water have an intense 
blue color that we seldom see in Northern latitudes, 
but when the wind blows and the sky is overcast, the 
water is of a bright, seasick green color, known to 
poets although not to poetry. 

We have moonlight nights that are worth taking a 
five-day boat ride to see. At times the sky and sea 
are bathed in silver sheens and shimmers that equal 
those in some of the paintings and poems, and which 
are worthy the pen of a Scott or Shelley. At other 
times the firmament is caverned with jasper clouds, 
and the water mottled with mysterious isles of shadow. 
As Shelley says : 

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut 

By darkest barriers of enormous cloud, 
Like mountain over mountain huddled — but 

Growing and moving upward in a crowd, 
And over it a space of watery blue 

Which the keen evening star is shining through. 

How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh 

Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear 
Were discord to the speaking quietude 

That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault 
Studded with stars unutterably bright, 

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 
Seems like a canopy that love has spread 

To curtain her sleeping world. 



46 TO PANAMA 

This is about as I would have written except that 
I should also have put the Fruit Company's clerk and 
the English lady's maid in the scene to emphasize 
the moonlight and add that human interest which the 
lines do not express. The difference between Shel- 
ley's lines and mine would have been that Shelley's 
contain more poetry than truth, while mine would have 
contained more truth than poetry. Truth is better 
than poetry. 

I have given Shelley's description because people 
are seldom satisfied with the naked truth. They pre- 
fer something in costume, and labeled with a name. 
For instance, when they ask for medicine they get 
something with a name; when they want Christian 
Science they get nothing, with a name ; when they want 
lies they get the real thing. Those who can no longer 
be deceived are ready for another world, but not for 
a better one. 

Every one who visits the torrid zone takes a look at 
the Southern Cross. So did I. On the Caribbean it 
arises very late at night, and comes out about the time 
civilized banqueters are going home. I had to get up 
after midnight to obtain a view of it. There were 
several crosses visible and I looked at them all, and 
thus saw the Southern one. But I was unable to say 
which one was the one, for I had no compass. How- 
ever, that did not matter, since I could say I had seen 
it. The one that travelers see and talk about is a 
crooked one. It does not stand straight in the heav- 
ens, and has its beams warped. I would not advise 
any one to travel down here in a banana boat, that 



AT SEA 47 

becomes inebriated and intolerable every time a zephyr 
blows, in order to stay awake to see a little, crooked, 
imperfect cross that wouldn't be looked at in Chicago. 
One can stay at home and hunt up a better and bigger 
one before midnight, not to mention our glorious 
Orion, our beautiful Milky Way and many other in- 
teresting and historic constellations. In fact, how 
many Northern people who know of and have seen, 
and have acted silly about, the Southern Cross, know 
of all and have seen all and have acted silly about all 
of our Northern constellations? We should know 
something about our own heaven before we devote our 
attention to that of others. 



CHAPTER IV 

Port Limdn 

Christmas Eve — Heat as a Stimulant — Essentials to a Good 
Sleeper — Sheltering Reefs — Flying-Fish — Port Lim6n — 
View of the Island and Town from the Ship — A Sailing 
Vessel — The Piers — Fruits — Sharks — Christmas Festivi- 
ties of San Jos6 — The Great Flood — Accidents on the 
Railway — The Graveyard Washout— Two Weeks of 
Travel to go a Hundred Miles — Ashore — Almost an Acci- 
dent — Difficult Landing — A Negro with an Irish Brogue 
— Other Negroes — A Cockney Accent — U. S. Accent — 
Sun Baths and Shower Baths — The Rainy Season — No 
Thunder — An Earthquake — Its Wasted Energy — Popu- 
lation of Limon — The Fruit Company — The Stores and 
Business Houses — San Jos6ans Caught at Limon by the 
Washout — Boarding the Boat — Freight-ship Luxury — 
Arrival of the Italian Ship — Christmas Dinner on Board 
— Government Piers — The Warehouse of the United 
Fruit Company — Other Houses — Clean Streets — The 
Colored Inhabitants — The Race Problem — Vultures — ■ 
The Cockpit— The Cock Fight— A Used-up Victor — The 
Market — Tough Meat — Saloons — The Hotel and Garden 
— A Cockatoo — Highballs — Dear S. S. Lim6n— Escape 
from Malaria, Mosquitoes and Yellow Fever. 

Extracts from Letters, 

Off Port Limon, on S. S. Limon, 
10:30 A. M. Saturday, Dec. 24, 1904, 
This is Christmas eve, or will be when it is. It re- 
quired quite a little will power for me to come into 
the smoking-room where there is no breeze, in order 

48 



PORT LIMON ' 49 

to write and swelter, and swelter and write, and thus 
do two things at the same time on the same day. I 
feel like one bird being killed by two stones. 

You, of course, can have no conception of the effect 
of this tropical heat upon the nervous energies, for 
heat is a stimulant, and therefore not in your line. I 
formerly imagined that it was a pleasant experience to 
be under the influence of a stimulant, but now know 
that it is not. It does not make it a bit easier to do 
what you do not wish to do. I wonder if science is 
really correct in calling heat a stimulant, or if the idea 
is merely an opinion of scientists who, like women, are 
forever changing their minds, and who have but little 
experience or sympathy with stimulants ? 

By night my head is weary from thinking about 
how happy people are who live on land, so I promptly 
fall asleep and stay asleep for seven or eight hours. 
The three essentials to a good sleeper are present, 
viz., a relaxed mind, a comfortable stomach and warm 
feet. The combination is not to be had at home where 
the brain, stomach and feet can not get together. 

We were all day Monday from 10:30 A. M. to 6 
P. M. in getting out of the Mississippi River (120 
miles or thereabouts) and had smooth sailing on Tues- 
day, giving every one a chance to eat three times. On 
Wednesday we all dieted three times, being tossed by 
a troublesome trade-wind which was to last a week. 
But it is the unexpected that is always happening. By 
noon we ran behind some sheltering reefs off Yucatan 
and were suffering only from hunger — which is more 
easily cured than seasickness. 

The sun was shining and innumerable flying-fish 
were sporting about the boat. Instead of sailing 
through the air as I had seen them represented in 
books, they seemed to keep their winglike fins in a 
constant flutter, like the wings of hummingbirds, and 
shone brightly in the sunlight as they sped over the 
4 



.go TO PANAMA 

waves for forty or fifty feet. When they shot up out 
of the water they reached a height of two or three 
feet, went ahead for a short distance, and gradually 
sank nearer and nearer to the water until buried in a 
rising wave. After gaining the height acquired by 
the first impulse as they emerged, they did not seem 
able to rise any higher, but occasionally one would 
strike the crest of a wave at the end of its flight and 
give itself an upward turn, and would thus get a fresh 
start and take another flight, somewhat shorter than 
the first. The large number of them, and their live- 
liness and apparently intense enjoyment of the air and 
sun bath, produced a decidedly exhilarating effect 
upon us and added to the joy of not being seasick. 
But alas ! Great happiness never lasts. The next 
morning, Thursday, we were in the open sea again 
among the swells. 

And the swells still continue on the sea as well as 
in Port Limon, where we have been anchored since 
yesterday afternoon. The coast line is straight and 
there are no breakwaters for the protection of ships, 
except an island by the name of Uvita, which is situ- 
ated about a quarter of a mile from the shore. Our 
ship, two freight steamers and a sailing vessel are an- 
chored behind it. The island appears oval in shape 
and has, I should say, a surface of about six acres. 
There are reefs at either end upon which foamy break- 
ers are constantly curling and which, with the dense 
tropical forest that covers it, constitute an animated 
and pleasing picture. From the ship the town also 
looks beautiful, nestling among the cocoa palms and 
other trees that line the shore, and forming a pretty 
fringe to the densely wooded, rising background. 

The sailing vessel, which is a large schooner, came 
in shortly after we did, and it was an interesting ex- 
perience to see her handled by three or four men. She 
came toward us riding at full speed before the wind 



PORT LIMON 51 

with all sails set. She let down some of them as she 
came near us, swung slowly around our stern, let 
down more sail, pointed up toward the wind, then let 
down all sail and dropped anchor just as she got into 
position beside us at a conveniently safe distance. The 
quickness with which so few men executed these nu- 
merous details at the right moment, and the accuracy 
with which the ship was maneuvered, with nothing 
but the wind as a motor, caused me to realize that 
there was as much nicety in managing a ship as in re- 
moving an appendix. 

If there is no bay at Limon there are at least fine 
piers. The ships remain at anchor until the sea is 
calm, then move up beside the piers and take on their 
loads. Coffee and bananas seem to be the principal 
exports, although about all kinds of tropical fruits 
are, or can be, raised in Costa Rica. Oranges and 
pineapples are plentiful, but our Northern apple, which 
has almost as great a variety of flavors as all of the 
tropical fruits put together, is an exotic and a luxury. 

We saw a shark foraging about the ship this morn- 
ing. Usually nothing but the back fin came in sight 
as he swam along the surface, although occasionally 
he would show his nose. The sailors are fishing for 
him, but so far have not had a bite, and I am deprived 
of an exciting description. But few in my place would 
allow the opportunity to pass, bite or no bite. The 
captain says that the popular notion that sharks turn 
on the back or side when they bite or take anything 
into the mouth is a mistaken one. He and others have 
seen them grab things without turning. They do not 
always take time to turn on the side. Like other ani- 
mals they bite at things in any old way. But if a 
shark wishes to seize a large object that is floating on 
the surface, he may, if in no hurry, turn sidewise in 
order not to have to lift his head out of water over 
the object. Or if he wishes to bite a man's leg he 



52 TO PANAMA 

must turn sidewise in order not to bump his nose 
against the leg and thus prevent the mouth, which 
is quite a distance behind the nose, getting here. But 
that he habitually turns on his back or side, like a 
playful kitten, in order to eat or commit murder is one 
of those romantic notions that people who like to be 
deceived like to beHeve. Information that is novel or 
absurd attracts attention and spreads widely, and is 
slow to be corrected by reason and accurate observa- 
tion. Natural science still has many entertaining 
absurdities to eliminate from its teachings. 

But now that I am within sight and touch of the 
land of promise, the beautiful Costa Rica, I find myself 
in a sad plight. I can not get in. I sailed from New 
Orleans a week earlier than the other delegates in or- 
der to spend the holiday week at San Jose, the capital 
of Costa Rica and the Paris of Central America, and 
practice my Spanish and participate in the revelry. 
The beautiful city is located up in the highlands nearly 
4,000 feet above the sea level and has a mean yearly 
temperature of 68 degrees F., the extremes being 50 
and 80 degrees. Although it has neither a good troupe 
of actors nor of singers, it has the finest theater on 
the continent. It therefore imports an operatic com- 
pany from Spain every year for the Christmas holi- 
days, and has a season of operatic and theatrical per- 
formances, mimic bull-fights, genuine cock-fights, 
noisy merry-go-rounds, harmless football and all sorts 
of Spanish celebrations. All business is suspended and 
the people give themselves up to a season of carnival 
such as Latin nations delight in. But the wind blew, 
the rain came, the earth quaked and the mountains 
started down toward the sea, carrying away and bury- 
ing miles of the only railroad track that led from the 
Caribbean sea to the capital. This occurred four days 
ago, and two feet of water is still running over the 
great railroad bridge, which is 620 feet long and 220 



PORT LIMON 53 

feet above the bed of the well-named Reventazon 
River (Big Buster River). The wind and rain did 
about the same thing last year and, finding that it 
was easy, repeated its performance this year, only in a 
more thorough manner. 

The last train that came down from San Jose had to 
run through water that reached almost to the firebox' 
of the engine, and stop occasionally to chop up huge 
tree trunks that overlay the track. A train taking up 
the imported actors and singers engaged for the 
Christmas festivities at San Jose has not been heard 
from, and as all telegraphic communication between 
the port and the capital is interrupted, it is not known 
whether the players are now acting for a living or 
swimming for their lives. A trainful of workmen, 
sent up to see what could be done to clear the track, 
was caught in a land slide and buried, engine, men and 
all. 

Nine inches of rain fell at Limon night before last 
and carried the muddy water of the river out into the 
sea for five miles, coloring it a light yellow. As we 
came here we entered this yellow sea before we sighted 
Limon, and were in it fully an hour before we ar- 
rived in port. Trees, bunches of bananas and other 
debris are floating about, and although the stream 
that empties into the sea at Limon was a small one, 
they say that it is now large enough to float a ship. A 
portion of the graveyard here was also washed out, 
the flood carrying tombstones from one grave to an- 
other and mixing up the bones. However, as far as 
the living are concerned this is not a calamity, but 
a blessing, for the town has received the washing it 
needed to prevent the development of pestilence. The 
buried negroes don't know the difference, nor do the 
living care. The dead are having a good drying off 
down below and the living expect to get one. 

My fellow passengers, all of whom are bound for 



54 TO PANAMA 

San Jose, will have to wait for a passing ship to take 
them to Colon, then cross the isthmus by rail to the 
city of Panama, and wait there for a steamship to 
take them up the west coast to Punto Arenas where 
they can wait for a train to San Jose. Whether they 
will have to stay there very long or not, depends upon 
the amount of washing out there has been on the Pa- 
cific side. As the steamers make many stops on the 
Pacific coast and do not run very often, the passen- 
gers will be on the way between one and two weeks, 
according to their luck in catching a boat and a train, 
instead of making the overland trip of 103 miles in a 
few hours by rail, as they had expected to do. 

As for me I will lose the fine Christmas weather in 
the mountains and the round of novel entertainments 
in the Paris of Central America, and be obliged to 
spend two weeks instead of one in the hot city of 
Panama, which is at sea level, within eight degrees of 
the equator, and within two or three degrees of blood 
heat. 

3 130 P. M., Dec. 24, 1904. 

We have been ashore. The United Fruit Company 
sent out a row boat in which we climbed over the swells 
for about a quarter of a mile as the falcon flies, but 
over half a mile as the row boat climbed up and coast- 
ed down. Getting from the lowered stairway of the 
ship into the small boat was a test of good jum.ping, 
good judgment and good luck. The waves as seen 
from the deck of the ship did not appear over three 
feet high from trough to crest, yet the little boat be- 
side the ship sank at least five feet from the step plat- 
form and rose up to it again. 

The insurance agent had an excess of confidence in 
himself, as all successful insurance agents must have, 
and went down the steps first, to show us how. But 
for once his judgment of risks was poor. As he 



PORT LIMON 55 

jumped at the boat, it sank out of reach and moved 
from under him. Luckily he had a business educa- 
tion, which teaches men never to give up what they 
have once laid their hands on, and he kept hold of 
the railing of the stairway. But his big body had ac- 
quired momentum and had to go, and he swung sus- 
pended by his hands over the water, with his umbrella 
sticking to him and his coat tails flying, until the boat 
rose up beside him and he was pulled into it. A man 
with less physical strength and presence of mind would 
have splashed down into the waves to frighten sharks 
and spoil our excursion to Limon, The insurance 
agent, however, did not even lose his umbrella, which 
was not insured and which he held up in triumph and 
exultation as soon as the danger was over. The ladies 
saw the performance and could not be persuaded to 
leave the ship, as their lives were not insured. Some 
one spoke of sharks, and they shuddered. 

Upon arriving at the pier we were rowed to the 
landing place, where again good judgment and gym- 
nastics were required in order to jump on the lower 
platform before the boat would sink away, and where 
good luck and agility were necessary to enable one to 
get up on the pier before the next wave broke over 
the steps leading up to it. 

The first dock hand we saw was a coal-black negro 
with an Irish brogue which he used freely. It was a 
precious combination and gave me a new sensation. 
I was sorry that I could not take the combination with 
me as a curio. Nearly all of the negroes about the 
pier were Jamaicans and had a quaint accent and in- 
flection of voice that was musical and pleasant to listen 
to. One of them had acquired a cockney accent and 
shocked and instructed us by calling a dollar a "crony" 
{corona), a highball "a eyeball" and a baked potato 
"a hiked potighto." I never realized before how 
characterless and commonplace our United States 



56 TO PANAMA 

pronunciation really is. It lacks the hizarrerie of the 
native London article which has been called by Don 
G. Seitz "a queer jargon of misplaced aspirates and 
vowels interspersed with drawls and growls." We 
have to invent Americanisms and rhetorical barbari- 
ties in order to outdo them. 

While ashore we had hot baths in our own per- 
spiration followed by cool shower baths in the rain, 
the frequent repetition of which finally drove us back 
to the ship. The rainy season is supposed by the cal- 
endar to last from May to November, but the calendar 
is a theorist, for we have been having rain from one 
to five or six times a day, varying from brief sun- 
showers to copious rainfalls. On the Caribbean side 
it rains both in the rainy and dry seasons, there being 
only about two months in the year of dry weather. 
The rain, however, cools the atmosphere and the 
earth, and renders the lowlands near the coast quite 
comfortable compared with the Pacific side, where the 
seasons are more sharply differentiated, and there is 
more dry weather. Although I have seen many show- 
ers I have heard no thunder on the Caribbean. The 
showers come and go with such rapidity that appar- 
ently they have no time to thunder. Possibly the hot 
air over such warm water is so uniformly laden with 
moisture that electricity does not easily concentrate 
except at great heights and is only heard on great 
occasions. But it is just as well not to hear it, for it 
is Southern in temperament and revolutionary in its 
methods, and is apt to radically change the existing 
order of things. 

Limon had an earthquake five days ago at midnight. 
It frightened everybody and sent people skipping 
around in their muddy back yards clad in flowing white 
raiment like angels errant, but it did them no harm. 
The following lines are copied from the local news- 
paper: "At midnight on Monday the entire city was 



PORT LIMON 57 

thrown into a state of alarm by a severe shock of 
earthquake, the Hke of which had never been experi- 
enced in Port Limon by the oldest inhabitants. Sev- 
eral private houses and shops suffered, etc." At pres- 
ent earthquakes are useless generators of energy, but 
if they could be stored up and used to shake school 
boys and servant girls out of bed on cold mornings 
they would become popular. 

Limon has about 3,000 inhabitants, largely negroes 
from Jamaica, and is the only Costa Rican port of 
entry on the Atlantic side. It is practically a North 
American town, however, being supported by the 
banana business of the United Fruit Company. Near 
the wharves is the main building of the company con- 
taining the offices and stores. Here merchandise of 
all kinds can be bought, from that which is put into 
the stomach to that which is worn on the back. The 
greater part of the goods, however, come from the 
United States and, as the Costa Rican duties are high, 
one pays about double our retail price at home. The 
town has a good-sized hotel, a bank, a well-stocked 
drug store, two or three steamboat agencies, a few 
small stores for the negroes, and numerous saloons 
of high and low degree. The large stores and agen- 
cies, as well as all things that pertain to politics, are 
conducted by Costa Ricans, many of whom live at 
San Jose and come down to Limon frequently to look 
after their interests. Several San Joseans came dov/n 
just before the washout to attend to business for a 
day or two, and will now be obliged to wait here two 
or three months or make the trip down to Panama 
and up the Pacific coast with some of our S. S. Limon 
passengers — a just punishment for neglecting the hol- 
idays for business. 

If I had arrived several days earlier and had gone 
to San Jose before the washout, I should have had to 
return by way of the Pacific coast, missing the Medi- 



58 TO PANAMA 

cal Congress and arriving home about two weeks after 
the end of my journey. Thus the storm saved me, 
and was a fortunate occurrence after all. 

It is also fortunate that the floods have almost 
stopped the moving of bananas from the plantations 
down to the shore, and that the sea is too rough for 
the ships to take on their loads. The S. S. Limon 
will thus be obliged to remain at anchor behind the 
island for a day or two, and the captain will be able 
to keep us as boarders until Monday when a big Ital- 
ian passenger ship arrives. We have hitherto 
been longing for dry land, but now that we are liable 
to be put on it to live in the town where the nights 
are hot, muggy and mosquito-ry, where there is a 
complete ice famine, much malaria and a few cases of 
yellow fever, we are content to remain on the steamer. 
The captain says that the sea is the only place to live 
on, and from the tropical, semi-infernal standpoint 
his view is the right one. Freight-ship accommoda- 
tions have become a luxury, which proves that luxury 
is merely a point of vi^ew. Everything is luxury to 
some, nothing is luxury to others. 

7 A. M., Dec. 26, 1904. 

The Italian steamship, our friend in need that is to 
take us to Colon, has arrived and will depart this after- 
noon. 

Yesterday we had an enjoyable Christmas dinner 
which was seasoned by the fact that we had gone 
through the hollowing out process of getting into the 
tropics by sea, and by the fear that we had more emp- 
tiness to endure before another opportunity for indul- 
gence would present itself. I often think that the well- 
known and often-sought sea-appetite is largely due to 
a making up for missed and lost meals. We had bar- 
ley soup, fish, roast turkey, cold meats, canned peas, 
canned corn, sliced tomatoes, strawberry preserves, 



PORT LIMON 59 

plum pudding, Washington pie, cheese, fancy cake, 
oranges, apples, nuts, raisins, grapes and champagne. 
After we had filled the available space in our bodies 
with this conventional conglomeration, to whose nox- 
ious influence the custom of ages has rendered the 
human family more or less immune, the captain took 
the insurance agent and myself on shore to see the 
Christmas festivities. 

While climbing the waves in the row boat on the 
way to the landing I noticed how well the government 
piers were built, the posts being protected by copper 
sheeting and the edge of the platform surrounded by 
heavy iron girders. These iron girders were, how- 
ever, a sad trial to the ship captains, for in bad weath- 
er they injured the sides of the ships, and made it 
almost necessary to wait for a calm sea in order to 
move up for a load. The Costa Ricans, of course, 
put these girders on their piers to make them last 
longer and, having a monopoly of the business, found 
it profitable to accommodate themselves instead of 
their customers. 

The warehouse of the United Fruit Company, which 
stands near the shore, is a handsome two-story rect- 
angular building composed of windows and veran- 
das, the upper story being fitted up as lodgings and 
lounging quarters for the employees. The principal 
streets have been filled in and macadamized, and were 
washed entirely free of loose dirt and gravel by the 
recent rains, with the result that the surface looks 
like rough concrete, and is as clean as if it had been 
scrubbed with scrubbing brushes by a corps of house- 
maids. All of the houses except two or three of the 
five or six business buildings are one and two-story 
frame skeletons, and are thus practically earthquake 
proof. They could be rocked like dry-goods boxes 
without being harmed or rendered more dilapidated; 
and if they were rocked over they and their inhabi- 
tants could be replaced at but little expense. 



6o TO PANAMA 

The negroes here are much blacker than those in the 
United States, many of them having skin as black 
and lusterless as soot. Their complexions are seldom 
spoiled by white blood. They are the real thing. They 
are better natured, more manageable and more inter- 
esting than our mulattos, who are neither one thing 
nor the other, although in the United States they 
claim that they are both things and have in them the 
best blood of both races. Slavery was the crime of 
the South, but it was perhaps a pardonable one in all 
except one feature, viz., the mixing of the races. That 
act was the sin, and the result is our race problem — 
a curse. The white blood of the mulatto longs for 
its own, and the black blood of the genuine negro is 
taught to long for what is not its own. 

Vultures hopped about the back yards and perched 
upon the housetops ready to eat up the garbage as 
fast as thrown out. Stagnant water and dirt abound- 
ed, but it seemed to agree as well with the natives as 
with the big birds. The sun's heat reminded us of the 
heat of some of our Northern steam-heated houses, 
and our handkerchiefs were kept busy drying our 
faces and necks. So when we found a score of ne- 
groes gathered in the shade about a cockpit we went 
into the shade to cool off. 

The cockpit was a round space about ten feet in 
diameter surrounded by six slender wooden posts 
supporting the roof and forming a part of a low wall 
about three feet high — high enough to keep the fight- 
ing cocks within, but not to obstruct the view of the 
sports. The surrounding space was shaded by large 
trees but not enclosed, being merely a back yard to 
which a wide passage between two houses led. There 
was no admission fee, the spectators or "betters" 
standing around the pit betting on their favorites. 

In the fight we saw a medium-sized Spanish roos- 
ter, belonging to the establishment, disable a large 



PORT LIMON 6 1 

one of the same breed with the second stroke, and 
kill it with the third. The entertainment was short, 
but not sweet. A lance about two and one-half inches 
long had been fastened to one of the legs of each bird, 
the lances being about as wide and long as the small 
blade of a large penknife, slightly curved and acutely 
pointed. At the second jump the lance of the small 
rooster pierced the body of the larger one, who imme- 
diately turned sidewise and sank down. The victor 
seemed to understand the action of the wounded bird 
and was inclined to leave it alone, but the owners set 
them at it again. The wounded bird made another 
great effort, but his abdomen was this time pierced 
by the penetrating lance of the victor, which stuck 
fast and held him down beside his prostrate victim. 
The owner pulled them apart, upon which the wound- 
ed bird jerked his leg and wing convulsively two or 
three times and expired. 

I think that it was an easy death for a fighting cock, 
although not as easy as having his neck wrung. He 
certainly had a much easier time than the victor of 
the previous fight, in which artificial spurs had not 
been used. The hero stood on a pile of boards nearby 
without a feather on his head, neck and thighs, and 
with his bared skin swollen and as red as raw beef. 
He had conquered in a long fight, but in the process 
had undoubtedly had a half hour of the most severe 
and exhausting punishment. Yet he stood up and 
looked proudly about him, like a fighting cock still, 
unconscious of his loss of beauty and of usefulness — 
too naked to fight and too tough to be eaten. 

Having seen enough to satisfy our barbarous in- 
stincts, and cool off our enthusiasm but not our bodies, 
we continued our walk and soon came to a large cen- 
trally located market such as exists in nearly all South- 
ern towns. Here we saw negroes carrying in freshly 
killed beef to be sold the next morning at daybreak. 



62 TO PANAMA 

for, on account of the scarcity of ice, the butchers 
have to sell their meat almost as soon as killed. This 
probably accounts for the unseasoned toughness which 
is the chief distinguishing characteristic of tropical 
beef, although tough beef is sometimes found in the 
temperate zones. We afterwards passed several sa- 
loons in which the white young men of the town were 
playing cards, and stopped in one of them and drank 
nauseating luke-warm orangeades. Even the sa- 
loons and the hospitals were out of ice. Our last stop 
was at the hotel, a good-sized frame building that 
backed up to the seashore and was delightfully cooled 
by the sea breeze. The front garden of about three 
acres was the most beautiful mass of foliage I have 
ever seen. Excepting the wide paths, it was almost a 
solid mass of loaded orange trees, towering royal 
palms, foliage plants eight feet high, flowering trees, 
and other plants of the richest green, yellow, orange 
and variegated coloring. 

We passed through the hall into the back yard, 
which bordered on the seashore, and sat for a while 
on the wide porch enjoying the sea breeze and watch- 
ing a tame cockatoo ; a red, yellow, orange, green, 
black and blue parrot, fully a yard in length from the 
tip of his yellow beak to the end of his blue and, car- 
dinal colored tail. I often wonder if we Americans 
are not descendants of the beautiful and loquacious 
parrot instead of the gibbering monkey, for our women 
are so ornamental, and swearing comes so natural 
to our men. 

While sitting and chatting we had to do the appro- 
priate thing and take a couple of highballs, for we 
were joined by some real Costa Ricans, who take 
whiskey and White Rock at stated intervals for their 
health, particularly when they come down to visit 
these hot lower regions. When the time came to go 
we drank another highball. I left out the whiskey. 



PORT LIMON 63 

for I knew that I had to climb into the boat ; but the 
others, including the teqiperate captain, took the uni- 
versal poison as the Scotch dispense it. They had 
the advantage of long practise and experience. My 
book knowledge did not help me in practice. 

After exercising a great deal of sober good judg- 
ment and juvenile agility, we got safely in and out of 
the row boat and finally on board our dear S. S, Li- 
mon. We were glad to be again on the boat, which 
was clean, cool and provided with ice and icebox 
meat, and were fortunate in not being obliged to spend 
the night in the old dilapidated worm-eaten hotel, 
which was full of mosquitoes and hot air, and had 
undoubtedly sheltered and shrouded many a case of 
yellow fever in the past. 



CHAPTER V 

Colon and the Panama Railway 

Getting Aboard the Italian Steamship — A Life on the Ocean 
Wave — W. J. Bryan's Opinion — The Steerage — A Many- 
tongued Enghshman and Champagne Cider — The S. S. 
Limonians and Dinner — A Polyglot Conversation — Steam- 
er Chairs for Beds— Night Sounds and Nauseous Smells — . 
Fresh Air a Magic Remedy — Col6n — The Formalities 
of Landing in the Canal Zone — Passed Through by the 
Linguistic Englishman — Circular No. 13 — Hotel Wash- 
ington and Its Discomforts — Attractive Grounds — Im- 
possible Lodgings — Sudden Departure — Paying Double 
— Expensive Transportation — Aristocratic Beer — Get- 
ting Something for Nothing — Suffocated by Handbag- 
gage — The Champagne-Cider-Englishman Again — Across 
the Isthmus by Railroad — Buried Treasures — U. S. Ma- 
rines — Rhine Scenery — Cutting a Mountain Ridge in 
Two — Arrival at Panama — Farewell to S. S. Limonians 
— Parting without Sorrow — Traveling Friendship — Wise 
Cab-men and Cheap Transportation — Two and a half 
Cab Rides for a Glass of Beer — Doing as the Wild Beasts 
do. 

The Italian steamship, which shall be nameless, was 
a large, fine-looking one when compared with banana 
boats, and was to arrive and depart on Sunday. It 
did so on Monday, and thus was keeping excellent 
time for Central American sea travel. It had done 
it manana, and every one was full of passive praise 

64 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 65 

which lay alongside the pier, brought our task however 
to a most agreeable ending. 

In order to avoid having our luggage examined, 
and being taxed by the thrifty Costa Rican custom 
officers, we arranged to have it put aboard the Italian 
steamer without being landed. This was easy for us 
but difficult for the sailors. They took it to the sea- 
ward side of the ship in a large row boat which held 
off about six feet and bobbed up and down like a cork. 
At an apparent risk of being thrown into the sea by 
each rising wave, the sailors made a noose in a heavy, 
stiff rope and placed it around half a dozen trunks and 
bags at a time. Then the derrick swung the things 
out over the side of the small boat and up on the ship 
in a way that frightened us, for it seemed almost a 
miracle that the loosely bound trunks and bags did 
not slip out and drop into the deep water. The sailors, 
however, seemed quite as cool and unconcerned about 
the chances of the trunks as about their own. 

But how to transfer the ladies was a more difficult 
problem for us. It was proposed that they be sent 
the same way as the luggage, but the gallant captain 
vetoed the proposition and swore that we should have 
to get them in and out of the row boats, and put them 
ashore, where they could board the steamship as be- 
came their sex. And, in fact, after many an "oh" and 
"no" and "I can't," and plenty of shoving and pulling 
and catching, we finally got them safely on mothei 
earth. The promenade from one pier to the other, 
including a walk through the gorgeous garden of the 
gangrenous hotel, and the final boarding of the ship, 



66 TO PANAMA 

which lay alongside the pier, brought out task however 
to a most agreeable ending. 

As a large number of the San Joseans who had been 
trapped in Limon by the washout were going with us, 
the steamship was quite crowded. It had come from 
Italian and Spanish ports and was making a tour of 
the Caribbean Sea, stopping at Limon, Colon and sev- 
eral South American ports, and had all kinds and con- 
ditions of men, women, children and animals on board. 
Sounds of many languages, English, Spanish, Italian, 
French, canine and gallinine, chased one another 
through the air in lively competition. We were a 
sort of Tower of Babel crowd. The European pas- 
sengers looked the worse for wear, and their appear- 
ance, actions and words convinced me that "A Life 
on the Ocean Wave" was a poetical expression for 
Englishmen and Americans only. The song has 
never been translated that I know of, hence other 
nations know nothing of the poetry of such a life; 
and I had the proof of it right there before me and 
all about me. Wm. J. Bryan is said to be responsible 
for the following sentence:* "There is rest in an 
ocean voyage. The receding shores shut out the hum 
of the busy world; the expanse of water soothes the 
eye by its vastness ; the breaking of the waves is music 
to the ear and there is medicine for the nerves in the 
salt sea breezes that invite to sleep." How eloquent 
must be the man who can talk or write like that on 
shipboard. 

The steerage was crammed with men, women, chil- 

*Chicaoo Daily News, Jan. 13, 1900, 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 67 

dren, dogs and chickens; the dogs and chickens in 
coops and the humans huddled quite as closely togeth- 
er on their deck space. The latter were much worse 
off because they had a little more intelligence than 
the chickens, and realized their situation and suffer- 
ings more fully. Some of the men stood up and some 
sat on boxes, bundles, sky-lights and parts of the rig- 
ging, staring blankly and stupidly about them; others 
loitered about the narrow gangways, or reclined on 
the dirty deck, playing cards. Women and girls sat 
in out-of-the-way places with plates of unbuttered 
bread and dry boiled potatoes in their laps, eating 
with ravenous content and looking and acting as if 
they had not eaten before for a fortnight. As the 
voyage had been a long and stormy one, the appear- 
ances probably were not at great variance with the 
facts. 

When finally we steamed out into the open sea the 
big boat, which sat high out of the water, rocked al- 
most if not quite as badly as had the S. S. Limon. 
Many of the saloon (so-called first-class) passengers 
amused themselves watching and criticising the sea- 
weary crowd on the steerage deck below them, and 
laughed loudly whenever one of the sufferers would 
give way to a paroxysm of sickness. But some of 
those heartless laugh-promoters got their deserts, for 
the night turned out to be quite stormy and they 
themselves did what seemed so amusing when others 
did it. 

The Port Limon passengers were quite gay for 
people who were traveling over a thousand miles by 



68 TO PANAMA 

sea, and over a hundred by land, in order to get to 
a place that had been only a hundred miles distant 
before the great flood of the Reventason or Big Bus- 
ter River. I was particularly interested in an English 
resident of San Jose who had traveled extensively in 
Europe and Central America and spoke French, Ital- 
ian, Spanish and English quite fluently and frequently. 
He spoke to every one in his own language and was 
"hail-fellow-well-met" with all. Before the ship left 
the pier he treated and was treated by the Limonians 
who came to see him off, and after we got off he did 
the same to his friends on board. In order to save his 
head he drank a great deal of champagne cider, a 
temperance drink which limits its ravages mainly to 
the stomach. We put out to sea at four-thirty, and 
by five-thirty his stomach weighed a ton and had to 
be lightened by throwing a part of its cargo over- 
board. By dinner time he was a changed man and 
acted as small as before he had acted big. When he 
sat down at the table he put on a brave and cheerful 
look. But I could see that his bravura and cheerful- 
ness were only skin deep, for there was no confirm- 
atory luster in his eyes and no pleasant word on his 
tongue. While the soup was being eaten he began to 
look at us with that unmistakable, conquered expres- 
sion of a seasick man. He stared at us as if asking 
us if we noticed his plight, and when the second 
course came on he had to capitulate. He suddenly 
stood up and said meekly, "I think I must go," and 
left the table, quickening his step as he neared the 
door. 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 69 

The dinner was quite elaborate, but the foods were 
mostly Italian mixtures and so greasy that although 
the motion of the boat did not affect me, my stomach 
felt, after I had finished, as if it had done something 
wrong. Grease and sauce blend the flavors of food 
mixtures into a greasy and saucy harmony and, since 
the taste of fat is agreeable to the hungry stomach, 
often make the mess taste good. This is one of the 
secrets of economical cooking, which is so extensively 
cultivated abroad. The mixtures, although not at- 
tractive to the pampered American palate, are much 
more healthful than mince and pumpkin pie, dough- 
nuts, baked beans, gingerbread, boiled corn beef and 
cabbage, devil cake and other devil dishes of Yankee 
invention. Our Pilgrim Fathers renounced the devil 
in all but eating. But the secret of the enjoyment of 
our dinner was the fact that we S. S. Limonians, who 
had become good friends and good sailors during the 
mutual and varied experiences of our voyage, all sat 
at the same table and took pleasure in each other's 
company — the more so because all around us were 
strangers with whom we had nothing in common 
either social or ancestral. They were gesticulating 
and talking incessantly, rolling their R's like ratchets 
and becoming more noisy, if possible, with every glass 
of wine they swallowed. The ship provided, gratis, 
plenty of cheap red and white wine, quite enough to 
inebriate all of us if we had been able to drink enough 
of it. Our Englishman and our insurance agent tast- 
ed it and promptly ordered some good wine at their 
own expense. But about the time we were half 



70 TO PANAMA 

through eating and the passengers had drunk about 
all they wanted, some excellent wine was brought in 
and served free. It was better than what either of 
our men had ordered and drunk, but came too late 
for them to enjoy it. Not having indulged in any 
before, I took a little and relished it. It seemed to 
affiliate with the grease that was growling inside of 
me, and made it feel more contented to remain where 
it was. If our New England had only provided an 
antidote or palliative for the sweet and sodden mix- 
tures with which she tempts us ! But she finishes the 
destruction of digestion by slaking and cementing 
them in the stomach with hard cider. 

After dinner I made the acquaintance of the Italian 
ship doctor, who spoke Italian and French; and Doc- 
tor Echeverria from Limon, who spoke Spanish, 
French and English ; and a physician from Austria, who 
spoke Italian, Spanish, French, English and German. 
And as I attempted to palm off on them a kind of 
English, German, Spanish, Italian and French con- 
fusion, we had a dizzy and delightful time together. 
Sometimes two languages were spoken at once. But 
even when the conversation became general among us 
the language was apt to be changed with each speak- 
er, who often could express himself better in a lan- 
guage other than that of the previous speaker. The 
comforting part of it was that even when the language 
changed with each speaker, most of us could under- 
stand what was said, and only became a little bit 
dazed and stuttery when we got to gesticulating and 
talking too fast. It was delightful, but it was strenu- 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 71 

ous. It would have been more congruous to have 
adopted French, the only language which we all spoke, 
as a common medium, but as none of us was French 
no one volunteered. 

After our polyglot jugglery had exhausted our en- 
ergies and our interest we separated, and I lay down 
on a bench and rested my brain. I remained there 
until quite late, for down among the staterooms there 
was so much noise and bad air and so many roaches, 
that the cool quiet fresh air on deck was not to be 
exchanged for that below except for the purpose of 
obtaining the needed sleep. 

When I finally concluded that it was necessary to 
go to bed, I noticed some passengers preparing to 
spend the night in their steamer chairs. I did not 
wonder at their choice of lodgings, but wondered how 
many shower baths they would get before morning. 
To have no place to sleep more comfortable than a 
reclining chair with wobbly wooden legs and arms, is 
one of those sidelights of travel that books seldom tell 
about and tourists never look forward to. Down be- 
low I found the portholes on my side of the ship 
closed in order to keep the waves and fresh air out- 
side where they belonged. I sighed and climbed up 
into the upper berth near the ceiling, for the lower 
one was occupied by dingy sheets and pillow cases. 
The person who had a right to sleep there had given 
it up, and was probably outside on a steamer chair 
where he could breathe better. 

The walls or partitions between the staterooms 
reached only to within a foot of the ceiling, which 



72 TO PANAMA 

was a provision for diffusing the bad air and odors 
equally and impartially among the passengers. I did 
no eavesdropping nor had I any desire to pry into my 
neighbors' private affairs, nevertheless I heard dole- 
ful groans and desperate whoops that were intended 
to be kept secret. The genial English linguist who 
had kept sober on champagne cider was in the room 
next to mine doing penance. Even after the general 
noises had subsided he occasionally broke the silence 
and started desultory responses and imitations down 
the corridor. Finally the forced contemplation of 
misery became monotonous and wearisome and I fell 
asleep and slept until the morning noises and noi- 
someness began to come over the partitions and awake 
my ears and nostrils to a renewed sense of the situa- 
tion. 

I descended from my elevated couch, hurried into 
my clothes and went on deck to let the close air out of 
my air passages. The effect of the fresh air was hyp- 
notic, and purgatory was forgotten. In a short time 
life became worth living, and I descended to the dining 
room where the odors were agreeable, and fortified 
myself with a water roll and two cups of cafe-au-lait. 
It seemed to me that the half of seasickness consisted 
in being stowed away in poorly ventilated and malodor- 
ous covey holes. 

We arrived at Colon between eight and nine o'clock. 
The town has a good but exposed harbor with large 
covered piers. Only two or three other steamships 
were at the piers, and during the time I was in the 
town I never saw more than four there at a time. Al- 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 73 

though quite a number of ships stopped, but few 
stayed long, which was possibly due in part to the fact 
that the harbor afforded but little protection from the 
terrible "Northers" that occasionally visited it. 

As we moved up to the pier, its edge was crowded 
with gesticulating negroes asking in Spanish and 
broken English to carry our baggage but who, when 
we finally called to them, told us to wait. This use- 
less calling made the crowded landing place seem 
lively and busy, although nothing was being done but 
waiting. The health officer came aboard and vacci- 
nated a few obstinate steerage passengers who had 
resisted the efforts of the ship surgeon, but now had 
to be vaccinated or be sent back home. He then or- 
dered the cabin passengers all into the dining-room, 
glanced at us and talked with the ship surgeon. Then 
the custom officer called us into the parlor and made 
us sign a declaration of our baggage. Finally, after 
about an hour of fruitless formality they allowed us 
to step on the pier, but held us there to have our bag- 
gage rummaged. At the opportune moment the lin- 
guistic San Jose Englishman who the day before had 
drunk champagne cider to everybody's health but his 
own, and to whom the habit not only of talking to 
everybody in his or her native language but of giving 
assistance and information to everybody, either was 
an inherited instinct or had become second nature by 
cultivation and habit, appeared suddenly, as if by 
magic and from nowhere, and made the custom officer 
ashamed to examine my trunk. He was not acquaint- 
ed with the young officer, but he was as expert with 



74 TO PANAMA 

strangers as an insurance agent, and had an extra 
traveling experience as well as a compelling touch of 
nature. One became his friend at the second word he 
uttered. His mouth was so full of words that they 
came out spontaneously and seemed to enjoy them- 
selves on their way out. Although he had never heard 
of me elsewhere, he introduced me as a delegate to 
the Medical Congress and guest of the Republic of 
Panama, and made me out so important and distin- 
guished that the officer touched his hat apologetically 
and hastily closed and marked my trunk. 

Sanitary circular No. 13 was handed to every one 
who landed at Colon. It contained instructions as to 
the best way of avoiding malaria and yellow fever. I 
have preserved mine, but it has become so badly torn 
and soiled and wrinkled from much handling and 
stuffing away in a crowded steamer trunk that it is 
almost illegible. For the benefit of those who stay 
at home, but wish to know how to avoid these mala- 
dies, I reproduce it here. I was unable to smooth 
out the wrinkles, however, and think that it must have 
become slightly altered by my typewriter. 

WAR DEPORTMENT. 

ISTHMAN CANAL COMMOTION. 

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SAN TOY OFFICER. 

Ann Cone, Isthman Canal Zoo, 
November 28th, 1904. 
Circular No. 13. 
This circular is handed to each new rival upon the 
Isthmuss for the purpose of instruction as to how to 
void the disease most prevalent in Panama and the 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 75 

Canal Zoo — MALE-ARIA. Its cause is now well- 
known and each one with a little care can do a great 
deal toward keeping few from the disease. 

It has been proven that male-aria is only given to 
man by the bite of a female musk-eater of a certain 
species (Anna Pholes). This female musk-eater 
must always bite some man-being who is suffering 
from male-aria and, in the blood thus drawn, she takes 
in the male-arian parachute. Within a few days, this 
parachute infects the musk-eater herself, and when 
she next bites a well parson she injects her hospital 
into the beating place. In this hospital the male-arian 
parachute is injected, and thus the wealthy parson 
contracts the disease. 

Now if every man would use a musk-eater-bar, so 
arranged that the musk-eaters could not get into the 
bar-room at night, much protection would be pro- 
cured from the disease, for while it may be contracted 
during the day time, it is not lovely to be. Probably 
nine tenths of the male-arian cusses contract the dis- 
ease during sleep, because the male-arian musk-eater 
is a night biter, and the parson is quiet at this time. 

Absolute protection from musk-eater bites is im- 
possible, but it is known that Queen-Anne is a deadly 
person to the male-arial parachute after she gets into 
the blood of a humming bee. If therefore every drone 
would shake three grins at Queen-Anne once a day, 
any male-arial parachute that has been introduced 
to him during the day would almost certainly be 
heeled. The best time probably to shake Queen- Anne 
is before going to bed at night. 

W. C. Gorgas, 
Colonel, Medical Cops, U. S. A. 

Chief San Toy Officer. 

Colonel Gorgas is said to be a clear-headed, re- 
sponsible man, but after reading his circular as re- 
stored I will not consider him responsible. 



76 TO PANAMA 

I had heard so much about Hotel Washington and 
its dehghtful situation on the cool tradewindy side 
of the town that my first endeavor upon landing was 
to get there and secure comfortable quarters. As 
there were no carriages, omnibuses, horse cars, dog 
carts or elevated trains visible on the streets (only 
steam engines and freight trains), and as the hotel 
was only a five-minute walk from the wharf, I walked 
the distance and hired a negro boy to carry my trunk. 
It was only ten o'clock in the morning but the heat 
was such that when I arrived I was perspiring most 
healthfully, and so was the negro boy with my trunk 
on his shoulder. I asked him to allow me to help him 
carry the trunk, or hire a helper, but he refused say- 
ing that it kept the sun off of his back. 

The hotel had an aged and careworn look and 
seemed to be more in need of the mild climate and 
salubrious surroundings than any of the guests who 
were lounging in its shadows. It was two stories 
high, and consisted of a long row of rooms, below 
and above, which extended in single file parallel with 
the beach and about a hundred feet from it on one 
side, and along a back street on the other side. Which 
was the front side, I could not tell. Wide verandas 
bordered each floor in front and rear, the rear (or 
front) ones serving as outdoor sitting-rooms and 
the front (or rear) ones as passageways from the 
rooms to the stairway outside. Thus each room had 
a back (or front) door and window facing the sea 
and a front (or back) door and window facing the 
town. At the end of the building on the right there 



COUON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 77 

was a large bath-house with several cold rain-water 
shower baths but no tubs. From the bath-house a 
wing extended toward the sea, forming with the main 
building an L-shaped structure. In the wing the 
rooms did not extend through from veranda to ver- 
anda and therefore possessed a door and windows 
on one side only; a poor arrangement for tropical 
dormitories, in which through and through draughts 
of air are necessary for health and comfort. 
, The grounds consisted of a well-kept lawn in the 
rear (or front) bounded, near the water's edge, by a 
shell road and a fine row of lofty cocoa palms, the 
conventional ornaments of inhabited tropical shores. 
On the back (or front) verandas one could sit and 
contemplate the ever youthful charms of nature, en- 
joying the constant fanning of the cool sea breeze and 
forgetting the hollow-eyed and unattractive, double 
faced appearance of the building. The only indoor 
lounging place was a small combination sitting-room 
and barroom; but as there ought to be no indoors in 
the tropics except for protection from night-biting 
insects and beasts, this defect was apparent only. 

I found the manager busy at his desk in a little 
office about ten feet square, that opened on one side 
into the hotel barroom and on the other into his gro- 
cery and provision store, from which he bought pro- 
visions of himself for his hotel. After finishing his 
business with the clerk, who had the right-of-way, 
he greeted me passively, and informed me that there 
was not an empty room in the house, but that by 
night he might be able to put me in a room with an- 



78 TO PANAMA 

other occupant or two. In the meantime he had my 
trunk and bag put in a room in the wing of the house. 
The room contained three single iron beds, two old 
water-worn wooden washstands, worth $2.00 each, if 
any one could be found willing to buy them, a center 
table two by three feet in diameter, worth $1.50, and 
two chairs worth nothing. It had neither a closet 
nor a wardrobe, and the two windows and the door 
were on the same side, and that side was not toward 
the sea. For three to sleep under mosquito bars in 
one room without an opportunity for a breeze to blow 
through it, would have been existing but not living. 
I did not then know that in the tropics people sleep 
with doors as well as windows wide open, utterly in- 
different to the presence or proximity of others, and 
that they subordinate all other comforts and callings 
to that of keeping cool. Seclusion is, according to 
tropical standards, an over-refinement of our Nor- 
thern modesty. In the tropics strangers eat, talk 
and sleep in common and in public in spite of the 
tedium of small talk all day and the annoyance of 
snoring and snorting all night; in the North we 
eat, think, sleep and weep as privately as possible, 
annoying our friends and relatives only. But I 
was not born in the tropics nor for the tropics, 
and longed for the comforts and privacy I had en- 
dured on the S. S. Limon. I wished I was on my 
way back to the States. Freezing and its accessories 
were not so bad after all and I would in the future 
cultivate them, and try to see their bright side. I was 
completely discouraged, and could not reconcile my- 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 79 

self to a communistic life of this kind; so I resolved 
to keep on the move until I found a place where I 
could live in a civilized manner even if I did not 
stop moving until I arrived home. 

I asked about trains and was told that the morning 
train had gone and no other would go until after- 
noon. But I went to the railroad station and learned 
that a special train would leave in about an hour. It 
was organized to take the passengers of our Italian 
boat across the isthmus to catch a Pacific Mail S. S. 
I therefore returned to the hotel and hired a negro 
to take my trunk back to the station. This negro pro- 
duced a tiny dray-cart, drawn by a tiny four-legged 
skeleton of a tropical horse and ofifered to haul both 
myself and my trunk. If an able-bodied man had 
been harnessed to it, I should have accepted; but I 
had pity on the skeleton and walked to the station, 
allowing the trunk to ride. I was soon booked and 
baggaged for Panama, and was happy again at hav- 
ing escaped the annoyance and discomforts of room- 
ing with strangers in a strange land, and at having 
the certainty of arriving in three hours at my long 
journey's end — at Panama, the oldest city on the 
continent. Quaint old, cute old, historic old Panama! 
where picturesque revolutionists were as plentiful as 
commonplace millionaires in New York. Panama 
meant rest, clean clothes, baths, sight-seeing and sies- 
tas ; and it could not be much hotter than Colon. I felt 
like one of the world's elect, for although many go to 
a hotter place, but few get to Panama. 

I had paid each of the negroes who had carried my 



8o TO PANAMA 

trunk the fifty cents which they demanded. But I 
learned afterward that they meant Central American 
silver, which is worth only half as much as gold. 
Hence I paid each of them the equivalent of a dollar 
in their money, or double the amount they asked. 
However, I would recommend this double method of 
paying tropical negroes, as it secures good service and 
doesn't bankrupt anybody. My second negro was 
very attentive and had my baggage weighed for me, 
and thus enabled me to pay $2.50 for it without any 
trouble. When, however, I had finally settled at the 
rate of three cents a pound for my baggage and about 
that much a rod for my fare, I discovered that the 
delegates to the Medical Congress were entitled to 
free transportation for themselves and baggage. The 
negro had thus cost me $11.50 more than I should, 
have paid. He was literally a born blackleg and I 
was a natural born greenhorn, but we were both inno- 
cent, and doing the best we knew how, and no harm 
had been done. 

After my great disappointment with the hotel and 
all of the activity involved, I felt faint, for I had 
breakfasted at break of day on the conventional noth- 
ing, viz., a dry roll and coflfee. So I stepped into a 
combination saloon and restaurant to get an appetizer 
to prepare me for a real breakfast, for in Central 
America, as in France, they rightly call their first 
meal coflfee and their second meal breakfast. When 
I had drunk my beer the bar-tender asked fifty cents 
for it. "This is too much," I thought. "If they charge 
fifty cents for beer, they must charge about a dollar 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 8i 

and a half for a highball and five dollars for a beef- 
steak, I had better get back home where I can afford 
to eat and drink." I handed the bartender a silver 
half dollar and to my surprise he handed me a silver 
half dollar back. Thinking that he had made a mis- 
take, I gave it back to him. He took the coin, looked 
at it and again returned it to me. Then I also looked 
at it and saw that it was a Columbian half dollar, equal 
to our quarter dollar. I felt greatly relieved — my 
glass of beer had only cost a quarter. So I drank 
another and made him keep the money, and he apolo- 
gized for having tried to make me take the money in- 
stead of another beer. I learned that beer was one of 
the most expensive drinks on the isthmus. It was an 
exotic from Milwaukee. It had to be brought a great 
distance in bottles, and instead of costing two thirds 
as much as a highball it cost nearly twice as much. 
The regular price for ordinary drinks at the bar, ex- 
cepting beer, was only fifteen cents in U. S. money, 
which was consoling. I should be able to drink even 
if I could not afford to eat. 

After getting some real breakfast at half price I 
felt better as well as wiser, and went to the station 
and found the officials still weighing baggage. The 
extra train was proving profitable and would prob- 
ably be crowded. Hence I hurried into the cars to 
secure a seat, and was glad I had done so, for pretty 
soon they were filled until there was hardly breathing 
space. It was not that the passengers were too nu- 
merous, but they had brought countless bags, bundles, 
blankets and other unperfumed traveling furniture 

6 



82 TO PANAMA 

all done up in hand packages, and had piled them up 
on and between the seats. They could take them thus 
without paying for them. We had first-class tickets, 
but were transported like emigrants and were nearly 
two hours late in getting off. But I did not mind that, 
for the other S. S. Limonians were there, and we 
were enjoying each other's company and the privilege 
of commenting freely upon our strange surroundings. 

We were hardly out of the station, when the genial 
champagne-cider-Englishman from San Jose, who 
had telegraphed to the Pacific Mail S. S. Company 
to hold their boat for his party, and who had been 
mainly instrumental in getting the extra train put on, 
came down the aisle with a bottle of that most wine- 
Hke whiskey, called "Scotch," and our S. S. Limonian 
Englishman produced three bottles of that most wine- 
like water called "White Rock" out of one of his 
dozen traveling bags. So we had a Scotch treat. 
Pretty soon nearly every person in the car had re- 
verted to his atavistic emigrant nature, and was eat- 
ing out of his hand and drinking out of his bottle. It 
was quite an enjoyable picknicky experience, only I 
could not eat. I had taken a hearty meat breakfast 
before starting, instead of waiting for this sociable 
lunch. 

The journey of two hours was a delightful trans- 
formation from our long siege of Caribbean discom- 
fort. The cars had no glass in the windows, and the 
breeze caused by our motion kept us comfortably cool 
without bringing in any dust. The inhabitants we 
saw along the road were as black and curious looking 




HUTS ON LINE OF PANAMA ROAD 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 83 

as imps, and the foliage so dense in places as to ap- 
pear almost solid; and the frequent views of portions 
of the incomplete canal and of the picturesque rivers 
that intersected and mirrored the tangled foliage, lent 
a fascinating wildness and weirdness to the land- 
scape, that reminded us of oriental tales and occult 
apparitions. 

But all is not gold that glitters, nor passion that 
paints, nor poetry that poses. Commerce and greed, 
poverty and death, profit and loss, had left their trails. 
In places we saw ruined machinery sticking out of 
the underbrush. Indeed, whole workshops were cov- 
ered and all but concealed by the rank growth of veg- 
etation. At Bas Matachin a machine shop with an 
equipment worth at least a quarter of a million of dol- 
lars and covering six acres was overgrown ; and near 
it several acres of car wheels and steel rails had al- 
ready been dug out. After being put in order the 
shop was going to develop a capacity for turning out 
fifteen locomotives and 115 cars per month. Other 
warehouses contained a million dollars' worth of 
pumps, dredges and machine tools. Hundreds of su- 
perfluous letter presses and six tons of rusty steel 
pens were found among them. At Culebra they were 
repairing 1,000 cars, thirty locomotives and seven ex- 
cavators, besides many antiquated steam shovels, all 
of which were to be utilized to keep men busy until 
more modern machinery could be imported. Costly 
chicken-coops, a horse bath-tub 15x75 feet in area, 
and a pig pen 100x200 feet (the latter made of con- 
crete with iron supports and a galvanized roof, and 



84 TO PANAMA 

capable of holding 200 hogs) were discovered in the 
jungle. Surely Panama until just recently contained 
the greatest amount of accessible buried treasures of 
any country in the world. In the basement of the ad- 
ministration building at Panama are French printing 
presses and lithographic presses, and a carload of 
drawing sheets, which is, according to the investiga- 
tion of Frank C. Carpenter, from whose writings the 
above astonishing items of information are taken, 
thousands of dollars' worth more than can be used 
in all of the work of the canal. 

During the last half hour of the journey across the 
isthmus the scenery was hilly, and the view less im- 
peded by crowding vegetation. The barracks of the 
U. S. marines at Empire, nestling in the foliage on 
the side of the mountain, made a romantic picture as 
seen from the train, something like Rhine scenery 
without the Rhine. And I think that the luxuriance 
of the tropical foliage in the valley made an acceptable 
substitute for the Rhine at that point. Better to have 
Rhine scenery without the Rhine than the Rhine 
without any scenery, since we can't have everything 
in Panama. It is easier to imagine a river than to 
imagine the scenery. But when the canal is finished 
we will also have to imagine the scenery, for the pres- 
ent railroad and many of the villages we were looking 
at will be at the bottom of a lake, and ships will be 
passing over them. 

We rode through the Culebra cut, where they are 
cutting through a mountain ridge 300 feet high. Three 
hundred feet high seems pretty low for a mountain 



COLON AND THE PANAMA RAILWAY 85 

ridge until one attempts to dig through it and carry 
the rocky debris twenty-three miles up the Atlantic 
coast whence it can not be borne back by the torrents 
of the rainy season. Its accomplishment would make 
a fit subject for an Arabian Night story. But Uncle 
Sam finds it easy. He is going to build the canal over 
the mountain, and make his cement out of the debris. 

Suddenly, long before I expected or even desired 
it, we stopped at the city of Panama, the Mecca of my 
pilgrimage. I bade farewell to the S. S. Limonians, 
who were taken by the train to the mouth of the canal 
where the pier was located and where the Pacific Mail 
steamer was waiting for them, and started for Hotel 
Central. One of the most agreeable features about 
steamship friends is that there is no pain at parting. 
We enjoy them, and leave them rejoicing, and readily 
find substitutes wherever we go. If we meet them 
again soon, we greet them as vociferously as if they 
were old cronies; if we never meet them again we 
forget them as if they had been changes in the 
weather. 

I found cabmen in abundance, all native negroes. 
They were unlike any other cabmen I had ever met. 
In a way they were saints, gentlemen and business 
men, and didn't "let on." Instead of taking advan- 
tage of the facts that the weather at Panama was 
always either hot or rainy, the distance too great to 
be walked, and that there were no street cars, to charge 
a dollar for the long ride to the hotel at the other 
end of the town, they charged ten cents. Pah! In 
Chicago the cabfare from the railway stations to my 



86 TO PANAMA 

house is two dollars and a half. But by keeping 
their price down to ten cents the Panama cabmen 
not only have killed street car competition, but they 
get more jobs without doing any more work. Their 
horses do the work while they merely take rides, and 
are kept cool by the motion and entertained by their 
customers. It is a wonder that with such successful 
and moral business models so near them, the Colon 
negroes can be so mercenary and shortsighted. 

I like a cheap ride, but when it is as cheap as that 
it seems like something not worth having. One can 
take two and a half rides for their price of a glass of 
beer. It is preposterous. While in Panama I did 
refuse to ride once, and walked to the station from the 
hotel — but only once. The ride was worth the price 
of two and a half schooners of beer. The distance 
was composed of cobblestones and animated by heat, 
and grew upon acquaintance. Walking at night in the 
tropics is pleasurable and healthy, but by day it is 
impossible. In the tropics one should do as the wild 
beasts do, viz., keep out of the sun and let beer alone. 




ALONG PANAMA RAILROAD 



CHAPTER VI 

Panama 

Origin of the Name Panama — Suggestions for Change of 
Name — Enlightening a Cab Driver — Scalping in the 
United States — A Cure for Obesity — Shirking — Descrip- 
tion of Road from the Railroad Station to the Hotel 
Central — Plaza CentrM — Tips — The Negro in the North 
and South — Dr. Frank's Opinion — How the Tropical 
Negro's Wants Are Satisfied — Opportunities for Negroes 
and Mulattoes in the Tropics — Solution of the Race 
Problem. 

We are told that Panama Is the Indian name for 
good fishing place, or place abounding in fish. Judg- 
ing from the hotel fare this might be so, for when 
we did not have canned fish, we had fresh. But this 
explanation is regarded by archaeologists as a fish 
story and lacks anthropologic evidence. As to ety- 
mology, the name sounds and looks more like Greek, 
Latin or Spanish than Indian. Panamahaha would 
sound more like an Indian name and would express 
more. 

One enthusiastic writer says the name Panama was 
given to the city because it is the oldest city on the 
continent, the Pa and Ma of American cities. The 
simplicity of the explanation gives it weight. Sim- 
plicity and truth are twins, and simplicity was born 
first. 

87 



88 TO PANAMA 

A Spanish scientist asserts that the original name 
was Panima from Pa ni Ma, which means neither 
father nor mother. He claims that as the first city 
of America, it had neither father nor mother. This 
is simpler still. 

A Scandinavian historian thinks that the original 
name was Panamerica, which is Swedish. Eric was 
cut out later, and Panama was left. 

A celebrated English captain, whose name has been 
forgotten, thinks that the real name was Panamaniac, 
because the inhabitants were unlike the English, and 
refers to the capture of Panama by Morgan the pi- 
rate as proof. The inhabitants who went forth to 
fight insanely allowed themselves to be scattered and 
driven back by their own horses and cows. He says 
that the English do not fear these animals. 

Sportsmen say that the name is Indian and that it 
refers to the method of fishing formerly in vogue by 
the natives. The fisherman leans over the water and 
agitates it with his beard and lips, whereupon the fish, 
who can not distinguish a dark colored face above 
the surface of the water from a tree trunk, takes the 
agitation of the water for that made by bugs, darts 
at the place and lands between the Indian's teeth, and 
is caught. 

I myself am inclined to cut the Gordian knot by 
proposing a new name. With a temperature of 90 
to 100 degrees F. in the shade on Christmas and New 
Year's days, the town should be called Infero in Esper- 
anto, Inferno in Italian, Enfer in French, Hoelle in 
German, Lugar Endiablado in Spanish and Vamick in 



PANAMA 89 

Volapuk. I suggested this explanation to our English- 
man of the S. S. Limon as we were parting at the 
Panama railroad station, and he said, "Go to Panama," 

I chartered a ten-cent cab at the station and en- 
tered into conversation with the driver, who, with his 
vast fund of knowledge concerning Spanish words 
and Panama city geography, taught me many things. 
He was one of the few Panama cabmen who spoke 
English, 

In order to give him some information in return, I 
told him that I came from one of the youngest and 
largest cities in the United States, a city in which we 
had a river whose water ran backward toward its 
source, that the city had also built a canal that car- 
ried the waters from Lake Michigan uphill on its way 
down to the Gulf of Mexico, and had constructed a 
pump that would have pumped the Niagara Falls into 
the Mississippi River had not the rest of the country 
objected and interfered. I told him that some of us 
remembered when Chicago was the center of the 
greatest Indian scalping district of the world. 

He stared at me with the whites of his eyes while 
I was talking, and then wanted to know if I had ever 
seen any one scalped. I told him that I had myself 
been scalped five times and was now growing my 
sixth head of hair ; that the hair of many of our wom- 
en turned golden yellow instead of gray as they grew 
older; that hairgrowing was one of our industries, 
and our horticulturists made it grow on wax figures 
faster than it grows on babies' heads, just as our 
builders put roofs on houses before building the walls, 



go TO PANAMA 

and in his hot country would leave off the walls 
altogether. 

"Do they ever begin at the roof and build down- 
ward?" he asked, dryly. 

"Not as a rule, but we often begin the new build- 
ing before the old one is torn down, and put in the 
new foundation and supports while the old building 
is still inhabited." 

He did not seem to know that I was telling the 
truth, for he began to lose interest and whipped up 
his emaciated horse to keep it from falling down, and 
apart. So I changed the subject. 

"Your horse seems to be getting very thin from 
your efforts. Or perhaps it is from its own efforts. 
It is tired carrying its age, which, of course, is grow- 
ing greater and heavier every day. It ought to be 
wired and connected with a power-house. In my 
country we put up better frameworks and run them 
by gasoline vapor. How do you feed it?" 

"I don't feed him." 

"I beg pardon. I meant to ask how you diet him ?" 

"He works and fasts until six in the evening, when 
I then turn him loose and lot him nibble. I lay off 
once a week to spend my week's earnings, and turn 
him out to grass for the day, when he fills up." 

"I have it at last," I exclaimed so suddenly that he 
gave a little start. "I have been seeking a cure for 
obesity for years, and you have found it and demon- 
strated it. I'll make my fat patients fast and work 
all day, let them nibble after 6 P. M. and once a week 
turn them out to golf, which includes both the grass 
and the filling up." 




IN PANAMA CITY 
Store and Residence of the Poorer Quarter 



PANAMA 91 

"What a queer country yours is," he said, "I should 
think that people would make fun of each other all 
of the time." 

"They do. Scheming for each other's money and 
then making fun of the losers, keep them busy and 
happy. But why do you tire yourself beating your 
horse?" 

"I'm working, or being worked, I hardly know 
which." 

"And what is the horse doing? If he could only 
take the whip!" 

"He's shirking, sir. I'm giving him the whip," 

"Well, it's about time for him to shirk. He prob- 
ably wants to do it once more, and has no time to lose. 
If the poor brute could only talk, as we do." 

"That's one bad quality he doesn't share with us, 
sir." 

After we had thus driven about a mile, the houses, 
which near the station were dilapidated one and two- 
story frame structures, teeming with Chinese and 
negroes, began to improve in quality, and we came 
to the Plaza and Church of Santa Ana. Here we 
found ourselves to all appearances in an old Span- 
ish town, as full of medieval inconveniences as New 
York or Chicago of modern improvements. Span- 
ish houses, churches, streets, plazas and people — 
everything quaint, curious and comfortless — dirty, dis- 
eased and dead. We passed many hotels, but the 
buildings were small, old, dingy and uninviting in 
appearance. They looked more like homes for mi- 
crobes and macrobes rather than dorias and hidalgos. 



92 TO PANAMA 

The next half or three-quarter mile was through 
the best business part of the city where whites pre- 
dominated. The houses were Spanish in style, two 
or three stories high, nearly all having stores on the 
ground floor and living apartments above. They 
formed a solid front of masonry, slightly varied, and 
were built in little blocks that measured about loo by 
200 feet. The cross streets were too narrow for two 
persons to walk abreast, so that the only way for pe- 
destrians to pass one another was to step off into the 
street, and the only way for vehicles to pass one an- 
other was to make use of the sidewalks. However, 
that didn't matter. Vehicles did not frequent the 
side streets, although plenty of cabs were rattling 
back and forth on the main thoroughfare which led 
us from the railroad station to Plaza Central, the 
principal public square and park of the town. It was 
square in shape and about 250 feet in diameter, and 
was occupied by the Parque de la Catedral (Cathe- 
dral Park), all except a twenty- foot strip of street 
extending around the outer edges. The street was 
also paved with those sounding cobble-stones for car- 
riages and horses to rattle upon and murder sleep. 
The foliage in the park was thick but, as the dry sea- 
son had already set in, it had not the luxuriance and 
brilliancy of that on the other side of the isthmus. 
The garden of the hotel at Limon, Costa Rica, was 
still the most gorgeous bit of vegetation I had seen. 

On the west side of the square stood the Cathedral. 
Its high square Spanish towers were crusted over 
with pearly shells, and adorned with delicate, tree-like 




THE CATHEDRAL OF PANAMA AND CORNER OF 
THE PARK 



PANAMA 93 

shrubs which grew upon their venerable walls. On 
the same side of the square was a small department 
store. On the north side were, besides the business 
houses, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and 
the Panama Lottery, the latter being the lower floor 
of the bishop's house. On the south side was a book 
store and the United States government official build- 
ing. On the east side flourished a German saloon, a 
money changer, two business houses and Hotel Cen- 
tral. In the hotel building, and flanking the main 
entrance or corridor on either side, were an immense 
barroom and a small barber shop, each apparently 
doing a rushing business. Next to the hotel on the 
second floor, over a store, was a Spanish club where 
cards were played after dark and before dawn. 

I tipped the cabman with a nickel, equal to fifty 
per cent, of his pay for the ride, and received a polite 
bow and "Gracias, Senor." 

I was told afterward that the tipping of cabmen 
was not customary. The cabmen of Panama are so 
honest and disinterested that a pleasant word is as 
good as a tip. If only our American negroes, who 
believe that one good tip deserves another, would all 
go to Panama and do as the Panama negroes do, they 
would learn to be tolerant of the whites, who wish 
only to be served and left alone. 

I do not suppose that all of my Northern readers 
take enough interest in their negro brothers to study 
the race question. Some think they do not have to. 
For the enlightenment of such as do not study, I will 
quote from a recent popular novel that was being 



94 TO PANAMA 

printed in this country while I was in Panama, and 
has since been dramatized. The quotation represents 
a Southern physician, Doctor Cameron, teUing a 
statesman named Stoneman how the negroes mal- 
treated the whites in South Carolina after having 
voted themselves into complete political control of 
the state. 

" 'The negro is the master of our state, county, 
city and town governments. Every school, college, 
hospital, asylum and poorhouse is his prey. What you 
have seen is but a sample. Negro insolence grows 
beyond endurance. Their women are taught to insult 
their old mistresses and mock their poverty as they 
pass in their old, faded dresses. Yesterday a black 
driver struck a white child of six with his whip, and 
when the mother protested, she was arrested by a 
negro policeman, taken before a negro magistrate, 
and fined ten dollars for "insulting a freedman." ' 

"Stoneman frowned: 'Such things must be very 
exceptional.' 

" 'They are everyday occurrences and cease to ex- 
cite comment. . . . Our school commissioner is 
a negro who can neither read nor write. The black 
grand jury last week discharged a negro for stealing 
cattle and indicted the owner for false imprisonment. 
No such rate of taxation was ever imposed on a civ- 
ilized people. A tithe of it cost Great Britain her 
colonies. There are 5,000 homes in this country — 
2,900 of them are advertised for sale by the sheriff to 
meet his tax bills. . . . Congress, in addition to 
the desolation of the war and the ruin of black rule, 



PANAMA 95 

has wrung from the cotton farmers of the South a 
tax of $67,000,000. Every dollar of this money bears 
the stain of the blood of starving people. They are 
ready to give up, or to spring some desperate scheme 
of resistance ' 

"The old man lifted his massive head and his great 
jaws came together with a snap: 

" 'Resistance to the authority of the national gov- 
ernment ?' 

" 'No ; resistance to the travesty of government 
and the mockery of civilization under which we are 
being throttled! The bayonet is now in the hands 
of a brutal negro militia. The tyranny of military 
martinets was child's play to this. . . . Eighty 
thousand armed negro troops, answerable to no au- 
thority save the savage instincts of their officers, ter- 
rorize the state. Every white company has been dis- 
banded and disarmed by our scalawag governor. I 
tell you, sir, we are walking on the crust of a volca- 
no ! . . . Black hordes of former slaves, with the 
intelligence of children and the instincts of savages, 
armed with modern rifles, parade daily in front of their 
unarmed former masters. A white man has no right 
a negro need respect. The children of the breed of 
men who speak the tongue of Burns and Shake- 
speare, Drake and Raleigh, have been disarmed and 
made subject to the black spawn of an African jun- 
gle! Can human flesh endure it? When Goth and 
Vandal barbarians overran Rome, the negro was the 
slave of the Roman empire. The savages of the North 
blew out the light of ancient civilization, but in all 



96 TO PANAMA 

the dark ages which followed they never dreamed the 
leprous infamy of raising a black slave to rule over 
his former master ! No people in the history of the 
world have ever before been so basely betrayed, so 
wantonly humiliated and degraded!' 

"Stoneman lifted his head in amazement at the 
burst of passionate intensity with which the South- 
erner poured out his protest. 

" 'For a Russian to rule a Pole,' he went on, 'a 
Turk to rule a Greek, or an Austrian to dominate an 
Italian, is hard enough, but for a thick-lipped, flat- 
nosed, spindle-shanked negro, exuding his nauseating 
animal odor, to shout in derision over the hearths and 
homes of white men and women is an atrocity too 
monstrous for belief. Our people are yet dazed by 
its horror. My God ! when they realize its meaning, 
whose arm will be strong enough to hold them?' 

" *I should think the South was sufficiently amused 
with resistance to authority,' interrupted Stoneman, 

" 'Even so. Yet there is a moral force at the bot- 
tom of every living race of men. The sense of right, 
the feeling of racial destiny — these are unconquered 
and unconquerable forces. Every man in South Caro- 
lina to-day is glad that slavery is dead. The war was not 
too great a price for us to pay for the lifting of its 
curse. And now to ask a Southerner to be the slave of 
a slave ' " 

That such a terrible description should be taken seri- 
ously, even in frenzied fiction, is an indication that 
the ambitious negro is out of place in the United 
States, where he is as a man without a country. In 



PANAMA 97 

the North he can not compete with the whites ; in the 
South he is a dissatisfied servant. He is too ambi- 
tious for his opportunities here. Let him go to the 
tropics where the whites can not compete with him. 

On our way home from Panama, Doctor Frank, 
who had been seasick during the whole of the voy- 
age down, said: 

"They can say what they please about the tropics, 
I am never going there again. Zur Hoelle with the 
tropics ! They were made for negroes ; let the ne- 
groes have them. I have said it." 

I confess that for the time being I agreed with him. 
The full-blooded negro improves and thrives and 
finds his wants satisfied in the tropics, and will never 
thrive elsewhere. When the tropical negro wants a 
rest he takes a siesta, and is rested. When he wants 
food he plucks a banana, a pineapple or a mango, and 
is nourished. When he is thirsty he climbs a tree, 
cuts open a cocoanut, drinks the juice, and is re- 
freshed. When he craves riches he stays away from 
work to spend a week's earnings, and is rich. When 
he wishes to rise in the social scale, he marries above 
him, and is stuck-up. When he needs an edu- 
cation he learns to come in out of the sun, and 
is wise. He does not hanker after social and lit- 
erary distinction, and is satisfied. He does not seek 
office, and is not disappointed. He does not ask for 
tips, and they are not thrust upon him, except by the 
Yankee-errant. When he comes to die he gets sick 
or is killed and is restored to the impartial dust of his 
Mother Earth and, having accumulated neither wealth 

7 



98 TO PANAMA 

nor cultivated tastes that he cannot take with him, re- 
mains forever after contented. His life is a bit of 
time, his death a bite of dust. The world has been 
benefited, but not disturbed by him. He has been 
true to his race and has accomplished his destiny; he 
has peopled the tropics. 

Look at Doctor Cameron's picture and then at mine. 
Who would not choose mine for the negro? If he 
can not solve his race problem in the United States, 
he can go to the tropics, and the tropics will solve 
him. The Romans told each other to see Naples and 
die. The negroes have not Naples, but they have the 
equator. It is theirs. Sooner or later they will have 
possession. 

As to the mulatto, he is more sinned against than 
sinning. He is the product of man's interference 
with the divine will as evidenced in God's work. Ex- 
tremes, whether of race or rhetoric, do not blend; 
they antagonize and distress. This new race mixture 
is neither white nor negro. God made the negro, 
man made the mulatto. As the blonde race thrives 
best in the north temperate climate and the negro in 
the tropical, the mulatto would thrive best in the semi- 
tropical. In Cuba the lighter colored ones would find 
an appropriate climate and congenial surroundings. 
In Cuba there is no color line or race prejudice. The 
mulattoes could mingle with the whites until in time 
they would form a part of a dusky white, intelligent 
mixed race. They would be dissolved and their prob- 
lem solved. But they must hurry up or the race prob- 
lem will get there first. 



PANAMA 99 

The darker mulattoes might go to Hayti and make 
use of their intelHgence in reforming society and 
running the government, and thus render a real serv- 
ice to mankind. It would be a missionary service in 
which the missionaries would save themselves also. 
This would be easier than to win high station and re- 
spect in a white man's country. In Hayti they would 
in time become assimilated with the native black race 
and become a part of a lighter colored, more intelli- 
gent race than exists there to-day. Nothing could 
be more simple. 

If our negro will not do this (and who said he 
would?) he must be diluted or spread out, for the 
white man must rule in a white man's country. His 
only hope for toleration and assistance is by being in 
the minority. If white immigration will accomplish 
this in the Southern states then the negro will be 
saved; if not he must save himself by spreading him- 
self. 



CHAPTER VII 

At Gran Hotel Central 

El Gran Hotel Centrdl — Its Plan — Prices — Two in a Room — 
Church Ruins as Boarding-houses — The Hotel Furniture 
—Advantage of Two in a Room — Primitive Service — 
The Plumbing — How to Break up Luxurious Habits — 
The Temperature — A Walk in the Sun — Baths — Doctor 
Echeverrfa's Appetizer — Effects of Liquor — His Charac- 
ter — The Hotel Food — The Venezuelan Minister — The 
Custom of Treating — Cigaret Smoking, a Solitary Vice — 
A Visit to the Home of Senor Arango — Clothing an Injury 
— Panama Ladies — A Linguistic Defeat — Spanish Amer- 
ican Education — Influence of United States upon Central 
American Customs — Language of the Lower Classes — 
A Visit to the Southern Club — Cola by the Pint — Beer — 
Alcohol Versus Syrup — To Bed in the Dark — The Light 
Habit Broken up — A Definition of Happiness — A Miracu- 
lous Dawn and an Awakening Town — The Sun Makes 
a High Jump — Southern Activity and Northern Indolence 
— A Delightful Sponge Bath and an Hour of Exercise — 
CofEee and Rolls — Delayed Eggs and Drastic Americans — 
A Revolution for an Egg — Reasons for the Light Early 
Breakfast — Burnt Coffee as a Delicacy. 

Gran Hotel Central was the only second-class hotel 
in Panama — there was no first-class one. It is a four- 
story stone house built around a square patio, or 
court, about fifty feet in diameter, and is situated on 
a corner of one of the streets that enter the Plaza 
Central. Around the patio on the three upper floors 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 



lOI 



run verandas upon which all inside rooms open. The 
two sides of the house that front on the plaza and 
street have an outer row of front rooms on each floor 
parallel with a row of inner ones from which they 
are separated by a corridor. The outer rooms are 
long and narrow with the window at one end, over- 
looking the street, and the door at the other end 
opening into the corridor. The inner rooms have no 
windows, but have doors at each end, single ones 



END ROOM 




^4 P^ 






rRAME WITH 
H00R3 



ROOM 



ROOM 



SO 
BQ.LBOr 
AW SOW 



IN INSIDE ROOM 
WITH DOORS 



AT BOTH ENDS 
NO WINDOWS 



ii 



DIAGRAM OF MY ROOM AND THE INSIDE ROOM ACROSS THE CORRIDOR 



opening into the corridor and folding doors on the 
veranda in the patio. Fresh air can enter through 
the doors only. The stairway is out-of-doors in the 
patio, and the landings on the verandas. 

Each room contained two beds, and the price was 
four dollars a day in gold for a bed and six dollars if 
one person engaged the whole room. However, as 
two guests were not put in one room until there was 
one in each, it was safe to pay for one bed only, ex- 
cept upon unusual occasions when there was a great 



102 TO PANAMA 

crowd of visitors in town. But the best way to travel 
on the isthmus is to have a traveling companion to 
occupy the other bed. One's wife would do, only the 
isthmus traveling would probably not do for her. The 
Tivoli, which has since been erected on Ancon hill, 
may do for ladies but it is American and therefore 
uninteresting. Hotel Central had a sort of monopoly 
of the business, since the others were either tenth 
class or unclassible, and there were no good furnished 
apartments to let in town. I heard of one boarding- 
house, but that was already full of permanent board- 
ers. In looking for rooms I found but one real estate 
agent, an American, and I could not understand how 
he made a living without having anything for rent or 
sale except church ruins. 

When I arrived, all second and third-story outside 
rooms had at least one occupant, and as I refused to 
occupy one of those inside windowless rooms in which 
I would have to sleep with the doors open, I was 
lodged three flights up, under the mansard roof. It 
was up near the sun, but commanded a good view over 
the trees of the park and caught the breeze when there 
was one. It was well that I had already seen the best 
hotel in Colon, or I should have been shocked by the 
rooms of Gran Hotel Central, and my visit to Panama 
would have been spoiled. The furniture consisted of 
two single iron bedsteads with dirt-stained mattresses 
of certain age; a small, worn-out, dingy washstand, 
such as are sold at auction after having been discard- 
ed from the servants' bedrooms of Chicago boarding 
houses ; a plain wooden bureau of the same character, 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 103 

and a small, square, rough table which served both 
as a center table and writing desk. There were neither 
closets nor wardrobes, nor hooks for the disposal of 
clothes. The second bed might have served as a pros- 
trate clothes-press if the mattress had looked less in- 
fected, or if its stains had been covered and concealed. 
The floor was of plain, unpolished, foot-worn wood. 
In front of each bed was a network of dirt held to- 
gether by a small piece of antique ingrain carpet. 
However, I was finally settled and satisfied, for I 
had the chamber boy nail to the wall a board frame 
holding five or six small hooks to serve as closet and 
wardrobe. A candle was also furnished, but no pro- 
vision made for a light in the corridor. And as there 
was no bell to call for service, the only way of procur- 
ing help if one were taken sick in the night, was to 
grope along the dark corridor and go down the three 
flights of starlit steps in the courtyard to the office. 
Hence I began to think that there might be an ad- 
vantage in having to share a double room with a 
stranger ; for if either one were taken sick the other 
could go down to the office and wake up the hotel 
clerk. One's valuables might not be as safe with a 
stranger but one's life would be safer, and who would 
not prefer to lose his valuables rather than his life? 

In the daytime, there was a quick way of communi- 
cating with the office, which had survived the centu- 
ries. A bell boy, who was also the chamber boy, 
messenger boy, etc., was on each floor listening for 
the sound of a gong in the court. When the office 
wanted to communicate with one of the floors, the 



I04 TO PANAMA 

clerk stepped to the corner of the court, or patio, and 
sounded the gong once, twice or three times, accord- 
ing to the floor he was calling, and shouted up the 
message or information to the boy. In the same way 
the boy could call the clerk and shout a message down 
to him. In busy times the gong sounded frequently, 
and as it was loud enough for the combination bell 
boy, chamber boy and man-of-all-work of each floor 
to hear, wherever he might be, it must have proved 
a great annoyance to occupants of the inside rooms 
who wished to take a midday siesta or retire early. 
But Napoleon slept soundly on battlefields, which, I 
suppose, were more noisy than this patio. 

The plumbing was all in one corner of the building 
and fortunately could be reached only by a walk along 
the open air veranda around the court. It consisted 
of two toilet and two bath-rooms on each floor, one 
of the bath-rooms with a tub and the other with a 
shower. The plumbing system was old and imper- 
fect, and would have been condemned in any real 
American city. 

I have given all of this detail out of kindness to 
the landlord, that the guests may know beforehand 
what to expect and not give him the trouble I saw a 
lady guest give him before she accepted the inevitable. 

But I was at my journey's end, had recovered from 
the shock caused by the accommodations offered me 
at the Washington Hotel at Colon, and had resolved 
to enjoy a rest. And this resolve was the key to the 
situation, for after I had ceased to expect anything 
better I learned that I could perform the functions of 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 105 

eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, exercising, sight- 
seeing and faultfinding with about the same satisfac- 
tion as if in the most luxurious apartment. When one 
has nothing to do but lounge, luxuriate, find fault and 
get sick, then sumptuous apartments help to make 
life endurable. But as I was busy much of the time, 
I easily dispensed with modern luxuries, which are bad 
habits. 

The temperature was 95 degrees F. in the shade at 
I P. M. and any pickaninny would have known enough 
to come in out of the sun. But I had experienced 
that temperature in the less humid and more bracing 
atmosphere of Chicago, and so I did as people do in 
Chicago during temporary hot spells, viz., went about 
actively and courted sunstroke and general tissue dis- 
organization instead of taking a siesta. I took a walk 
on the Bovedas, which is a promenade on the sea wall 
about a quarter of a mile long. Here it is quite cool 
in the evening and early morning, but as there are no 
trees it is scorching hot at midday. I also wandered 
about among the quaint old buildings and church 
ruins, and should have enjoyed it but for the extreme 
depression caused by the heat and humidity. 

When I returned to the hotel I asked for a bath 
and found that they only had salt baths. As I wanted 
a good cleaning instead of an unclean salting, I gave 
it up and resolved to hunt a bath-house in the city, 
although so far I had not seen a house, excepting 
a few private ones, that looked clean enough for a 
bath. 

I met Doctor Echeverria before dinner time, and 



io6 TO PANAMA 

we agreed to eat together during the week of waiting 
for the arrival of the medical congresistas. Doc- 
tor Echeverria was a Costa Rican and had been called 
from San Jose by the United Fruit Company to or- 
ganize and develop their hospital and cemetery at 
Limon, and superintend all medical and mortuary 
matters pertaining to that port, which was the prin- 
cipal shipping place of the company. 

The doctor, who had not heard from home since 
the washout at Colon, although he had sent a daily 
cablegram to his wife, invited me to take an appetizer 
and go to the cable office before having dinner — and I 
could not well refuse. While we were sipping our 
poison at one of the dozen or more tables of the spa- 
cious barroom, he told me that after coming down to 
Port Limon, whose lowland climate was tropical, 
from San Jose, whose highland climate was temperate, 
he at first drank no wine or liquor. But he soon found 
it more and more difficult to do his work; and after 
a time became depressed and morbid. His friends 
advised him to take a drink of liquor a short time be- 
fore the eleven o'clock breakfast and another before 
dinner. He did so and his depression passed off, and 
he was again able to work with comfort. I do not 
know what effect it would have had on me not to take 
an appetizer before each meal while at Panama, for 
I had no negative experience. Either he and I, or 
some one else and I, were always lounging about be- 
fore meals, and it was either my turn or that of the 
other one to treat. 

In Doctor Echeverria's case I suspect that he had 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 107 

become anemic and nervous from hard work, a com- 
mon occurrence in the tropical lowlands, and the alco- 
hol had produced a feeling of comfort in his mind 
and diminished his nervous tension, and had thus 
acted as medicine. A man who has a great deal of 
active physical work to do in the tropics, and gets up 
early and does a large part of it before eating anything 
except a roll and coffee, is apt to feel exhausted if he 
keeps on working during the heat of the forenoon, 
and to actually lose strength. The coffee and roll 
breakfast is for those whose work is not physically 
very active or prolonged, or is done later in the day. 
I am the more inclined to think the liquor relieved 
him by its anesthetic influence upon his nerves rather 
than by any curative action, because I have tried it 
faithfully on several occasions for indigestion, for 
loss of flesh, for insomnia and for debility, and have 
never experienced any beneficial results. In England 
I drank a bottle of Bass' ale at my six o'clock dinner 
and another at bedtime for four months without de- 
riving benefit, either by a recovery of the flesh I had 
lost or by rapid improvement of the debility of my 
overtaxed nervous system. I think that, with the rest 
I enjoyed, I would have recovered my usual health 
more quickly if I had not tasted the ale. In France 
I drank a pint bottle of claret at the noon and evening 
meals for several months, and perceived no benefit 
either in feelings or in appearance. In Panama I 
tried similar tactics, and when I arrived home was in a 
poorer condition in every way than when I left. 
Perhaps if I had eaten less, and drunk no liquor, I 



io8 TO PANAMA 

might have experienced benefit from my trip, but it 
would have meant social segregation. So I feel that 
I have now done my duty by alcoholic beverages. 1 
have made a failure, but my conscience is clear. I 
can not make myself over again and must give them 
up, let come what may. 

As an anesthetic, and therefore as a medicine in cer- 
tain irritable conditions of the nerves, I have found it 
of temporary benefit, but not curative. My experi- 
ence with sherry on the voyage back from Colon to 
Panama was good, but it did not prevent the seasick- 
ness from returning whenever the ship took a lively 
turn. Hence I would advise those who have no defi- 
nite ideas about alcohol to consider it as a medicine 
to be prescribed by a first-class doctor ; or a powerful 
poison to be taken as a means of dissipation while 
health lasts, but not as a salutary stimulant or a tonic. 
Liquors stimulate the stomach but also favor gastric 
fermentation and a tendency to inflammation; they 
bloat and fatten people sometimes, but do so tempo- 
rarily by interfering with the destruction and excre- 
tion of the waste material of the body; they make 
people permanently rosy, but do so by dilating and 
weakening the superficial blood-vessels, and they be- 
tray the cause of the rosiness by producing a charac- 
teristic mottled marking of the cheeks and crimson 
rotundity of the nose, to say nothing of whiskey pim- 
ples. If taken in small quantities during active exercise 
alcohol may be burned up in the body for immediate 
use, but if taken at other times it burns the tissues and 
permanently injures them. Inflammation of the stom- 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 109 

ach, hobnail liver, Bright's disease, heart-degeneration, 
dropsy, apoplexy and premature death from some acute 
diseases that would not prove fatal in a healthy being, 
are ordinary fates of those who have tried to improve 
on nature by the use of alcohol as a tonic or stimulant. 
Impaired brain power and transmission of such defect 
to the offspring, and thus the breeding of degenerates, 
is perhaps the worst result. 

Doctor Echeverria was about forty years old, had 
received his medical education at New York, had 
practiced several years at San Jose and, after being 
called down to Port Limon by the United Fruit Com- 
pany, had been sent by them to London to study trop- 
ical diseases. How much his student life in the Unit- 
ed States and his sojourn in England had affected 
his character I do not know, but he had that gentle- 
ness of speech and quietness of demeanor which had 
always seemed to me to be found only in the Anglo- 
Saxon countries. And he had also that Spanish 
courtesy which we seldom see among Anglo-Saxons 
in its best form. Altogether he was one of the most 
perfect gentlemen I had met, and it was a great treat 
to sit tete-a-tete at table with him twice daily. He 
greatly admired our government, and thought that 
the faith it had kept with Cuba was a sign of true 
greatness. We are the only nation whose government 
lives up to the requirements of a Christian nation. 

I was agreeably surprised at the hotel dinners, 
for I had been told that I should not like the 
hotel. I suspect that this somewhat prevalent bad 
impression had been made by the fact that when great 



no TO PANAMA 

crowds visit Panama, the hotel becomes crowded and 
the service is for the time insufficient. The provisions 
then become scanty, and canned salmon and canned 
vegetables intrude themselves disagreeably and per- 
haps unpardonably, although good food canned is 
better than poor food that has not been canned. 

After dinner we met Senor McGill, who was the 
political representative and local "chip-bearer" of 
Venezuela, that intrepid and warlike South American 
republic that is not afraid of anybody, and would 
rather take a thrashing than refuse to fight; and which 
by means of its pugnacity and pertinacity has won the 
respect of the world. However, Sefior McGill was 
everything but what I expected to see. He did not 
inspire me with terror. He was a slender, soft-voiced, 
mild-mannered, agreeable young bachelor whose bulg- 
ing hip-pocket contained nothing but cigarets, who 
liked soft drinks and who seemed to be seeking any- 
thing rather than a quarrel. And I suspect that 
President Castro is not as black as he has been paint- 
ed, and that during the recent political crises all he 
desired of the great powers was to be let alone. From 
his patronym, I should infer that Seiior McGill was 
a descendant of one of those scions of Highland or 
Hibernian nobility who, in earlier days, either with 
or without letters of marque from the English govern- 
ment, ravaged the Spanish main, plundered Spaniards 
by preference and others without reference, and 
finally settled down as Venezuelan nabobs. But he 
was not that kind of a murderer; he was only a lady- 
killer. It seemed strange to see a McGill who could not 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL in 

speak English or Gaelic or Hibernian. Yet, he did 
speak EngUsh — not that fluent, eloquent, consonant 
crowded variation that we in the United States are 
accustomed to hear from Macs and Mc's, nor the 
rough-and-ready dissonance of the naturalized Kai- 
ser-Wilhelmite ; but the soft disarticulation of the 
Spaniard who knows English until he begins to talk 
it, when the difficulties and duplicities of its pro- 
nunciation and his Iberic infirmity in sounding con- 
sonants bring to naught all of his knowledge of its 
phonology and construction. 

After we had conversed awhile in a sort of crazy- 
quilted, downy mixture of Anglo-Spanish, he put the 
polished chip on his shoulder and invited us to knock 
it off, or take something. So we took something. It 
was the tyrannic custom of the country, to be fighting 
to kill your enemy or "taking something" to kill 
yourself. Taking something was about the only en- 
tertainment (?) available in the evening except ci- 
garet smoking, which was mostly a solitary vice in 
Panama, and exempt from the sociable treating habit ; 
for every man carried his own package of favorite 
cigarets and was smoking them, or supposed to be 
smoking them, all of the time. Games of cards were 
of course popular at the clubs, but were an expensive 
entertainment for people of ordinary financial re- 
sources who cared to have money for use in other 
ways. 

Doctor Echeverria had several acquaintances in the 
city and offered to introduce me to some of them. Ac- 
cordingly after an hour of conversation with Senor 



112 TO PANAMA 

McGill, we left him to his cigarets and "treating" 
friends, and walked and mopped foreheads for three 
blocks down the street to call upon Seiior Arango, a 
prominent young engineer of the place. The heat 
had forced the sehor, who, like myself, looked as if 
his fat had already been melted and run off, to re- 
move his coat, vest and collar. He, of course, put 
them on when we arrived and was thus prepared to 
liquefy with us. I sympathized with him for having 
to live in a country where, all the year around, collars, 
vests and coats were physical encumbrances yet so- 
cial necessities. Clothing is supposed to protect and 
comfort the body, not to punish and injure it. The 
negroes have an advantage over the whites in this 
respect, for they adapt their clothing to the climate 
rather than to convention. But we cannot all be 
negroes, and there are drawbacks to being either white 
or black. 

We were very pleasantly and cordially entertained. 
The ladies were animated and interesting, but unfor- 
tunately they did not converse in English. In the 
North my Spanish seemed good enough, but when 
exposed in the warm climate of Panama, and served 
to ladies, it became mushy and flavorless. It was cold 
storage stuff. The Panamanians speak so fast that 
even Doctor Echeverria, a native of Costa Rica, often 
found it difficult to understand them. But when it 
came to catching the meaning of the animated, fast 
talking ladies, and then framing animated, quick an- 
swers appropriate to the fairness of their sex and 
commensurate with the chivalric euphemism of the 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 113 

language, I was glad to talk plain English with Sefior 
Arango. Having studied in the United States, he 
spoke our language fluently and with a soft, Southern 
accent that was charming. 

Many Central Americans obtain a part of their 
education in the States and thus learn to speak En- 
glish, and the building of the canal by Americans 
will cause many more of them to study it. Indeed, I 
think that in time the Panamanians, as well as the 
Cubans and Porto Ricans, will become North Ameri- 
canized in their customs and habits, except in so far 
as they will be prevented by the enervating climatic 
conditions. South American young men more often 
go to France or Spain to complete their academic 
education, or take post graduate courses, and thus 
not only cultivate the French language, but are influ- 
enced largely by French customs and ideas. But the 
Panamanian ladies, who, of course, do not travel ex- 
tensively, will now have a chance to learn and prac- 
tice English at home, and perhaps lose thereby a por- 
tion of their charm. The Spanish spoken by the edu- 
cated class of women is quite melodious, but that of 
lower class, native women, as we heard it on the 
streets, is anything but agreeable to listen to. They 
articulate rapidly and in a high pitch of voice, re- 
minding one of the cackle of a hen who has just laid 
an egg, but with less accentuation. The cackle goes 
on until the breath is all out, and begins again with 
the next breath. 

When we arose to go, Senor Arango insisted on 
walking and perspiring with us, keeping on his 



114 TO PANAMA 

clothes for the purpose, and led us to the Southern 
Club in a three-story building near the plaza. As in 
nearly all buildings in Panama, the street floor was 
occupied by a store, which left the two upper ones 
for the use of the club. He took us to the second 
floor, where we found a bar and a bar-tender, but 
no one else — not even a mouse. What a lively club, 
I thought, with nobody but a bar-tender in it. No 
mischief going on. I did not know then, as I learned 
afterward when introduced to the club by Doctor 
Cook of Panama, that the reading and card rooms 
were on the third floor, and that it was lively up 
there where the seats and sitters were not all empty. 
After the heat of our walk we were glad to seat 
ourselves on the little Spanish balcony at one of the 
windows and take the customary "treatment," viz., a 
fresco. Seiior Arango, who must have been younger 
than he looked, said that cola was very nice, so we 
ordered it. It was pop flavored with that name. Doc- 
for Echeverria, who was inclined to be fleshy and had 
perspired freely, enjoyed it as any hot and thirsty 
man enjoys cool drinks, and he ordered more. Our 
host proposed a third round, but I discouraged it. It 
is no wonder that Central Americans take only an 
orange and coffee for their early breakfast, when they 
drink animated syrups in this way of evenings. Yet, 
after all, there is but little harm in spoiling a break- 
fast that consists of nothing to eat. Preliminary to 
separating for the night we sauntered over to the hotel 
and had another treat. My companions wanted more 
cola, but I grew desperate and impolite, and said that 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 115 

my stomach couldn't stand any more cola or nectar ; 
they were too sweet for my temperament, which pre- 
ferred something bitter. The two pints I had already 
consumed were working like syrup in the sun, and I 
preferred to die for a sheep rather than a lamb, and 
would take a pint of Milwaukee beer to hurry up and 
complete the fermentation so that I might perhaps 
get a little convalescent sleep toward morning. Moral- 
ly speaking, it was wicked for me to take any more 
alcoholic stimulant after having had the usual liberal 
Panama allowance during the day, but physically con- 
sidered the end justified the means. The stomach as 
a vital organ had as much right to consideration as 
the head, and the head should share the evils of social 
customs with the stomach. Alcohol has always done 
me much less harm than sugar, and when I unfortu- 
nately have to choose between two devils I tackle the 
least. The two gentlemen gave no evidence of their 
surprise at my unceremonious declaration of honest 
opinion about their favorite fresco, for they were 
gentlemen. I was among gentlemen, and could say 
what I pleased without danger of open reproof. One 
can not always do so in Chicago and the Great West. 

After they had consumed and complimented the 
Milwaukee beverage just as if it had been their fa- 
vorite one, we parted, Sehor Arango proposing a visit 
to his summer home on the sabanas (prairies) on 
the following Sunday. 

I climbed up to my sublunar habitation, and as the 
electric lights on the plaza cast nearly as much light 
about my bed as the candle would have given, I did 



ii6 TO PANAMA 

not light up. I concluded that candlelight would be 
of more service to malarious mosquitoes than to me. 
In Chicago I should have suffered great inconven- 
ience at having no light in my bedroom, but having 
accepted the situation in Panama and having broken 
up the light habit, I was quite as happy without it. 
Happiness did not consist in having private illumina- 
tion to enable me to see myself go to bed, but in be- 
ing able to do without it. Unhappiness consists mainly 
of imaginary wants. 

There were no window-panes in the hotel, and when 
the heavy shutters were opened up widely the cool 
night air came in freely and the mosquitoes remained 
outside under the electric lights, enabling me to settle 
myself to sleep with comparative peace and content- 
ment. My experience on shipboard had rendered my 
sleep proof against noises, and had thoroughly broken 
in and hardened me to mattresses that were made to 
be cool but not to be comfortable. 

After what seemed to be a short sleep I awoke, and 
noticed that the room was much darker than when I 
had retired. In a few minutes the cathedral clock 
across the square struck one and I raised myself in 
bed and looked toward it. But the electric light that 
had illumined the dial was out, as were, in fact, all 
of the street lights, and I could hardly see where the 
clock was. I inferred that the one stroke was for 
one o'clock and lights out, and wondered that I should 
wake up so early. I turned over to go to sleep again, 
but while turning over I thought that the room seemed 
a little lighter. I immediately turned back again and 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 117 

saw that it was really lighter. I raised upon my elbow, 
looked out and saw quite plainly by the clock, which 
could hardly be seen before I had turned over in bed, 
that the time was twenty-five minutes to six. Within 
five minutes of profound darkness it had become light 
enough for me to see the time of day by the clock. 
By twenty minutes of six it was daylight, and by a 
quarter to six it was almost as bright as at noonday. 
For a Chicagoan who had never been told or taught 
of such a dawn, and why it was so, to have gone to 
Panama, and then to have waked up early for the first 
time after leaving Chicago, such a sudden daybreak 
would have seemed a new miracle worthy of being 
compared with the standing still of the sun in Joshua's 
time — only this time the sun had changed his tactics, 
and had taken a sudden leap over the horizon. 

A couple of carts rattled over the cobblestones at 
six o'clock, whereupon I got up, looked out and saw 
workmen beginning work on a new building a short 
distance from the plaza. Men appeared on the street 
and the town seemed astir almost in a moment. Clerks 
were opening doors and window shutters, and one fel- 
low was sprinkling the street in front of his store 
with a two-gallon sprinkling can such as are used for 
flowerbeds. It seemed strange to see full daylight 
develop in fifteen minutes and a sleeping city assume 
full activity in a half hour. In the North we consider 
Southerners indolent because they rest two hours in 
the middle of the day. But it is a wonder that they 
do not accuse us of indolence because our city workers 
sleep two or three hours after daylight in the summer 



ii8 TO PANAMA 

mornings, and go to work at eight or nine o'clock 
when it is hot, instead of at six when it is cool. 

My room was cool and pleasant at six-thirty, and 
I got out my clean clothes, consisting of gauze under- 
wear, a negligee shirt, duck trousers and a skeleton 
coat. I felt, however, that I ought not to contaminate 
them by getting into them until I had taken a bath. 
I had perspired tubfuls of water since leaving New 
Orleans, ten days previously, but had not had a con- 
vincing, conscience-quieting, fresh-water, hot bath; 
only cold salt ones. Perspiration and dust, rain and 
disease had all been at me and about me. In the streets 
and in the barber shop I had seen skin diseases and 
hairless patches on heads, faces and necks, and felt sure 
that, like tobacco smoke (which is visible and scent- 
able), some of the dust, or germs from diseased in- 
dividuals, must have been wafted about me and into 
my hair, clothes and skin although I could not see 
them. There was only one way out of the difficulty 
and that was by means of baths, frequent, 
and uncompromising, soapy and scrubby. Plenty of 
soap and water outside, and alcohol and pop inside, 
seemed to be the only way to live out one's shortened 
life in Panama. 

Not having a magic ring or an oriental lamp to rub, 
I scratched my head while I wished for a bath-tub — 
and immediately found a small wash-basin. I wished 
for fresh water, and found a large pitcherful. I 
wished for a portable shower bath, and found my 
hands, two of them. I preferred a pitcherful of cold 
fresh water and a wash-basin to a bath-tub full of 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 119 

cold brine. I also reflected that a cold sponge bath 
with plenty of soap could be made more cleansing 
than a shower or tub bath with cold water, because 
the sponge bath could be kept up indefinitely, or until 
one was clean; whereas the cold shower or tub bath 
was a chilling affair, and must necessarily be of brief 
duration and not very soapy. In order not to injure 
the ceiling of the room below, I spread newspapers 
on the floor before the washstand, poured the wash- 
bowl two thirds full of water and stood for a moment 
shivering before it, for the cool night air still lingered 
in the room. It was a delightful sensation to feel chilly 
within eight degrees of the equator and only a few 
hours after the all-day boiling spell of the day before. 
I rapidly washed my face, neck and shoulders, then 
wet my head and lathered it thoroughly with soap. 
In order to get the soap and dirt all out of my hair 
without irritating or infecting my eyes, I stood on 
my head in the washbasin (as far as my head and 
shoulders were concerned) and soaked and washed 
out the soap. I then changed water, and stood my 
head and neck and shoulders up side down again in 
the basin to rinse them. After wiping them I began 
to feel warm and in a mood for more work. I soaped 
my left chest and arm, then put my left elbow in the 
bath-tub, leaned my body over it and splashed and 
soaked off the soap, using my hand as a movable 
shower bath. I then did the same to the other side. 
Not being a woman, I had neither washrag nor pow- 
der rag to wash and dry myself, but had two heavy 
bath towels. The towel was a great success as a 



I20 TO PANAMA 

washrag in holding water and soaking off the soap; 
the ordinary Uttle feminine washrag is a miserable 
makeshift and does not deserve the favor it enjoys. 
After a long period of cold splashing with my washrag 
and another of dry scrubbing with my powder rag, I 
transferred my bath-tub to the floor and stood in it 
right side up, and was able to complete the bath to 
my joy and satisfaction with the bowl and water that 
had originally been intended for face and hands only. 
As a schoolboy I had been an amateur contortionist, 
and was not disabled like most of my friends by the 
fear of bursting a bloodvessel or straining my heart. 
But what pleased me most of all was that I had had 
an hour of active exercise, and felt strengthened and 
refreshed by it. I had found an antidote to the sun's 
deadly rays, a life-saving remedy. After getting 
my light tropical clothes on, I felt as if I wanted 
something more than the cup-of-coffee-and-half-a-roU- 
early-breakfast of the natives, and hurried down to 
the dining-room. 

Early breakfast, called "coffee," was served from six 
to eight o'clock on a long table in a small dining- 
room. Near each end of the table were a dish of 
oranges and a large platter upon which were piled 
round water rolls, similar to our round Vienna rolls. 
Two waiters stood at a sideboard, each with a long- 
handled tin pot of coffee in one hand and a correspond- 
ing pot of hot, unskimmed, fresh milk in the other, 
ready to serve a mixture of strong coffee and hot 
milk in any proportion asked for. 

I found three men at the table, a young, slender. 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 121 

dark-skinned Panamanian and two elderly, dignified- 
looking, gray-haired and gray-eyed Americans about 
sixty years of age. The Panamanian was sipping a 
cup of coffee, smoking his cigaret and reading a 
newspaper that lay beside the coffee cup. By the time 
his cigaret was half smoked the coffee cup was emp- 
tied, and he left the room — one of those fellows who 
can eat anything but food, and drink anything but 
water. I was sure that he had not had an appetizing 
sponge bath that morning, or he would not have 
breakfasted on a few whiffs of smoke. However, he 
had the advantage of me in being able to satisfy his 
appetite with other whiffs if he became hungry before 
noon. Perhaps he was a club man and had worked 
his head and stomach hard all night. While I was 
helping myself to an orange, the large, portly, digni- 
fied-looking American at the head of the table sud- 
denly called out in a loud American voice: 

"Where is that head waiter ? Why doesn't he bring 
my eggs?" 

The two waiters immediately rushed out of the room 
and back, and tried to say in broken English that the 
head waiter was not there. Since nothing but coffee, 
rolls and oranges belonged to the first breakfast, it 
was necessary to order the eggs and pay extra for 
them, and if one came down pretty early (as heavy- 
eating, light sleepers usually do), there was apt to 
be some delay in getting them. Hot fires and head 
waiters were not usually going at so early an hour. 

The old man glared at the waiters fiercely and they 
stared at him stupidly, not daring to drop their eyes. 
After a few moments he again broke out : 



122 TO PANAMA 

"Hasn't that head waiter been found yet? Where 
is the second head waiter — or the third head waiter? 
Telegraph to Spain for a Hve one. This is great serv- 
ice for eight dollars a day. Not even anything to 
eat when you pay extra for it. If you want an tgg 
you've got to fight for it — nothing short of a revolu- 
tion will make a hen lay, or an tgg cook in this coun- 
try." 

Just then a waiter, rendered nervous by the, to him, 
unintelligible thunder, allowed a roll to drop on the 
floor as he was passing them around, and the other 
waiter quickly picked it up and put it back among the 
rolls on the table. The second old man who was also 
waiting for eggs, exchanged glances with me, and I 
expected him also to speak his mind about the eggs 
and rolls and waiters ; but he did not, for he undoubt- 
edly felt that the efforts of the first speaker would 
bring his eggs also, and that all of the rolls had been 
in dirty hands and baskets, and on dusty tables and 
floors long ago. By way of relieving the tension I said 
to the one who had been complaining: 

"These waiters are native Panamanians and do not 
understand United States, and how to wait on Ameri- 
cans." 

"They are Panamaniacs," he growled, "and don't 
know how to do anything hut wait. They'd wait until 
a man starved. If these Panamaniacs would stir 
around and do more working and less waiting they 
would have an appetite themselves for breakfast, and 
learn the use of food." 

"I'll speak to them in Spanish. Perhaps it will 



AT GRAN HOTEL CENTRAL 123 

start them up," I said. So I called to one of them 
in a loud voice : 

"Camerei'o! Busqueme un toreador." (Waiter! 
Bring me a bull-fighter.) 

"Toreador?" (Bull-fighter) he exclaimed with a 
look of amazement. 

"Si, toreador/' I said. "Por que no? Es para 
tener este naranja." (Yes; bull-fighter. Why not? 
He is to hold this orange.) 

"Pardone, Senor, creo que Vd. quiere un tenedor." 
(I beg pardon, sir, I think you want a fork.) 

"Como Vd. quiere" (As you like), I answered, as 
if I had made no mistake. "Es lo mismo. Quiero 
ensenar a estos Norte Americanos como se come una 
naranja. Ellos no saben nada, absolutamente nada. 
No saben ni comer ni hablar," (It's the same thing. 
I wish to teach these North Americans how to eat an 
orange. They know nothing, absolutely nothing. 
They neither know how to eat nor talk.) 

The waiter seemed much relieved by this informa- 
tion and said in Spanish that waiters had to be smart 
men, but travelers who paid for the privilege, had the 
right to be fools ; and went out smiling with polite 
rage. A moment later the eggs were brought in and 
the two old gentlemen were soon busy and better na- 
tured. The milder one who had allowed the other to 
do the talking said to me : 

"I see that your Spanish did some good." 

"Yes," chimed in the fiery one, "when you talk to a 
horse you must talk horse." 

As the result of my long sponge bath, I felt that I 



124 TO PANAMA 

myself could enjoy three or four boiled eggs, but I 
remembered the old adage : "When in Rome do as 
the Romans do." As we were to have a hearty meal 
at eleven o'clock, eggs eaten now would spoil that 
meal, or if they did not, then the hearty meal eaten so 
soon after eggs would spoil them. In fact, the fat old 
gentleman was just recovering from an attack of rheu- 
matism, probably brought on by eating and sitting 
too much. Accordingly I drank two cups of half cof- 
fee and half milk and ate two oranges and two rolls, 
and left the table feeling quite comfortable inwardly. 
The Central American takes his cafe-au-lait with 
merely enough nourishment to prevent a feeling of 
emptiness or weakness during the forenoon, but not 
enough to prevent an appetite for a hearty meal at 
eleven o'clock, which is usually only three or four 
hours later. 

The Central American coffee is not only made quite 
strong, but it has a bitter, resinous taste which is de- 
veloped by roasting it until burnt, and then by boiling 
it. At first I did not relish it, but after learning to 
dilute it with an equal quantity of the hot, unskimmed 
milk, I became very fond of it. Its heavy flavor 
seemed to give it something of the taste of food as 
well as being a drink. 



CHAPTER VIII 

For Doctors Only 

Barber Shops and Disease — Chance for a Trust and a Public 
Benefaction — Tropical Hotel Clerk from Canada — A 
Visit to the Hospital at Ancon — Beautiful Location — 
Housekeeping under Difficulties — Genial and Gentle- 
manly Doctors — The Buildings Left by the French — 
Details — Prevalence of Malaria — Drinking Water — Why 
the People of Panama Ought to be Dead — The Spoiled 
Child — Why the Eleven O'clock Breakfast is Enjoyable 
at Ancon — A Specimen Hotel Breakfast. 

Doctor Echeverria did not appear for a half hour 
after I had finished my coffee and rolls. While wait- 
ing for him I had my hair trimmed, and experienced 
the pleasure of sitting in the chair next to a dirty- 
looking man with a skin disease which had caused his 
hair to fall out in patches, and which caused mine to 
stand up all over, as the barber's assistant began using 
comb and shears on him and making the hair and 
dust fly in my direction. If this man had come an 
hour earlier he might, without my knowledge, have 
been shorn on the same chair that I occupied, and with 
the same comb, scissors and unwashed hands that 
were used on my head. I felt like resolving never 
to go into a barber shop again, but knew that I could 
not live up to the resolution. I would have to step up 
and take my share of dirt and microbes and have 

125 



126 TO PANAMA 

them rubbed in at least once a month or two, for I 
could not trim my own hair. I could not help repeat- 
ing that good old saying, "God made Barbarians and 
seeing that they were no good, called them Barbers." 

The proprietor of the shop was a gentle old Ger- 
man, too good natured and old to learn the technic or 
meaning of cleanliness. He had cut hair and beards 
in Germany, the United States and Cuba, and knew 
all about his business except cleanliness. Cleanliness 
in barbers is like biblical honesty in business. While 
having my hair trimmed and my scalp infected by the 
old fellow, I asked him if he did a better business in 
Panama than he had done in the United States. He 
said: 

"Ogh, yes. In the Unidet States I did a goot pis- 
ness, yet not such a pig pisness ass here. Dere I wass 
only a boor barbeer, but here I make much money and 
am a pig man." — He was. 

The want of cleanliness of the barbers, and the 
custom of using public combs and brushes at hotels, 
clubs and entertainments accounts for nine tenths of 
the baldness in the world. Barbers' brushes bear the 
germs of baldness and badness from scalp to scalp, 
and their infected fingers rub it in. One should always 
go home and wash his head with soap and water, or 
with alcohol, as soon as possible after a barber has 
had his comb and black-bristled brush on it. One 
should also furnish his own comb and brush, razor 
and mug, and insist that the barber wash his hands 
thoroughly before touching them. Under no circum- 
stances should he be allowed to give the head a "dry 
rub." 



FOR DOCTORS ONLY 127 

There is a chance to make millions of dollars and 
benefit millions of people in the barber business. A 
trust that would teach its employees an appropriate 
antiseptic technic; would provide combs, brushes and 
all kinds of barbers' instruments adapted to steriliza- 
tion by strong antiseptics or by heat each time they 
were used; and would provide aseptic shaving, hair 
cutting, epillation, electric vibration, facial massage, 
baths and hairdressing, as well as clean furniture, 
floors, hands and men, would drive the old dirt-men 
out of the business in a short time. It would at least 
force them to wash their hands between customers; 
Such a trust would, of course, raise, or try to raise, 
prices, and thus "scalp" the community, and be cen- 
sured for it. But it is better to be scalped than bald- 
headed, to be expensively clean than economically 
dirty. It would constitute a great reform, which 
should be an aim of all trusts. 

How a cleanly man can go and await his turn in a 
barber shop to be shaved two or three times weekly by 
dirty hands, and be combed by dirty combs and 
brushes, and have his head dry-rubbed by hands that 
have been dry-rubbing other heads without being 
washed, when he can do the same himself at home 
with clean hands and implements and without waste 
of time, is almost incomprehensible. To gaze into a 
barber shop is bad enough. Flashy mirrors and mas- 
sive furniture cannot compensate for dirty methods. 
Barbers dare not use brushes with white bristles, for 
they would look frightful before night. They would 
have to be washed. 



128 TO PANAMA 

The hotel clerk was a polyglot French Canadian 
who, like the barber, the barber's assistant and a large 
proportion of the other trained employees about town, 
had traveled considerably before coming to Panama, 
and would probably travel again in search of more 
congenial climes and more remunerative work as soon 
as rivals should come and conditions improve. He 
spoke French well and Spanish and English indiffer- 
ently, and was willing to talk to any one until some one 
else claimed his attention. He fitted in his place very 
nicely, for he possessed that complicated lack of sys- 
tem that forms an essential part of tropical hotel man- 
agement. He was unfailingly obliging and affably ir- 
ritable, as forgetful and unreliable men are apt to be. 
In giving him orders, it was always well to wait and 
see them carried out. If one wanted anything sent to 
one's room, or brought down, it was well to wait 
until the gong sounded, the boy called down, the clerk 
called up, and the message was correctly delivered and 
intelligently understood; otherwise it was liable to be 
given wrong, be misunderstood or be forgotten. When 
time hung heavily on one's hands this supervision of 
the clerk and bell boy served to help the hot half hours 
move on. 

Doctor Echeverria appeared at last, full of half a 
roll and an orange and ready for the morning's work. 
He had sent his daily cablegram to his wife before tak- 
ing coffee, but had not yet heard from her. As he 
was the official head of medical affairs at Limon, he 
wished to be prompt in paying his respects to the 
chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone, Dr. Wm. G. 



FOR DOCTORS ONLY 129 

Gorgas, and the chief of the Marine Hospital service, 
Dr. H. R. M. Carter, and the chief of the Quarantine 
department, Maj. L. A. LaGarde. He could not rest 
until he had done his duty as a public health officer, 
a brother physician and a courteous gentleman. He 
did not realize that the social and ceremonial con- 
science of the Anglo-American race was not as sen- 
sitive as that of the Latin-American, While these 
chiefs would have been glad to see him, they were 
bound up in their work and would not have taken no- 
tice of a little delay on his part. So we drove to Ancon 
Hill, which was a short distance beyond the railroad 
station, and arrived there about nine o'clock. Leaving 
the cab we slowly walked up the beautiful avenue that 
led along the hillside through the grounds. 

The location of the hospital on the slope of Ancon 
Hill was certainly well chosen, for the ground was 
high and the view unobstructed. The driveway was 
shaded by palm trees and bordered with well-kept, 
sloping lawns upon which neat-looking frame houses 
were scattered. It seemed to me almost preferable 
to be sick up there than well in the dingy, dusty, sun- 
baked city below. The medical officers certainly had 
the choice place of residence on the isthmus, for here 
were fresh breezes, clean, well-drained grounds, quiet 
surroundings and a charming outlook upon semi- 
mountainous, tropical scenery. The Tivoli has since 
been built here and its construction must certainly 
have given the "black eye" to Gran Hotel Central. 
But to those who wish to know what Panama really 
is Gran Central is the place. Those who go to Tivoli 
9 



130 TO PANAMA 

read guide books and forget; those who go to Gran 
Central need no guide books, and never forget. 

We did not find any of the chiefs at their homes on 
the hillside ; they were down town at their offices in 
the government building in Plaza Central, from which 
we had started. We had gone from them instead of 
to them. These men get up at daybreak, take a cup of 
coffee, and presumably half a roll, and go down to 
their offices and transact a good day's office work by 
eleven o'clock. Then they drive back home, eat a 
hearty breakfast and remain in their garden of para- 
dise with their families until the midday heat begins 
to be tempered by the regular afternoon breeze, when 
they go to work again. 

But we had a pleasant chat with Mrs. LaGarde, the 
wife of Doctor LaGarde. She gave us all sorts of 
information from a woman's standpoint, and proved 
to us that although the exteriors were beautiful and 
perhaps enjoyable at Ancon, and the hospital a charm- 
ing place to get sick and get well in, the comforts of 
housekeeping and living constituted, according to 
United States habits and standards, a sort of seamy 
side of life for these hard-working semi-exiles. The 
houses had not the places to put things in, nor the 
conveniences for cooking and other details of house- 
keeping that are considered essential in the North. 
Closet room is a Yankee luxury. Clothes would not 
dry except in the sun and wind, and if put away would 
get wet again. Insects were annoying and screens 
had not yet been provided. Alterations about the 
house had to be made, and makeshifts adopted. There 



FOR DOCTORS ONLY 131 

was neither running water nor drainage. But Mrs. 
LaGarde was cheerful and even breezy in her talk, 
just as if she not only enjoyed giving the information 
but also overcoming the difficulties. With the assist- 
ance of the United States she has, I believe, overcome 
some of them since. 

Doctor Carter's son hunted up the young resident 
doctors. They were engaged peeping into micro- 
scopes, but they cheerfully gave up the private matinee 
they were having over their germs and, after having 
given us a peep at malarial high life, showed us 
through the hospital buildings. We found Mr. Car- 
ter and the young doctors exceedingly painstaking 
and courteous, and we afterward also found Doctor 
Gorgas, Doctor Carter and Doctor LaGarde even 
more so. A more genial and gentlemanly set of men 
in a quiet American way I have scarcely met. They 
seemed to have become imbued with the spirit of 
Spanish courtesy without having lost their American 
frankness and sincerity, and bore their great and un- 
usual responsibilities with cheerfulness and modesty. 

There were about twenty hospital wards, in sepa- 
rated one-story frame buildings, arranged in three 
curved tiers on the beautifully terraced slope of the 
hill. In fact, the ornamental grounds were so large 
and elaborate that the expense of keeping them up 
was quite an item. But the French had plenty of 
money, while they had it, and spent it artistically and 
generously, while they spent it. And there is no doubt 
but they built well, since the majority of the houses 
were found in a good state of preservation, and have 
been repaired at small expense. 



132 TO PANAMA 

Ancon Hospital had at the time less than a hundred 
patients, two thirds of whom were negroes, and over 
half of whom were employees of the canal commis- 
sion. To be laid up in those clean, well-kept wards 
and be waited upon by those tidy, cheerful nurses 
must have been a great luxury to the poor black dev- 
ils. To die there would be enjoying themselves to 
death, no matter where they finally went to. 

Superficial swamps all along the Zone were being 
drained or filled, in hopes of exterminating the ma- 
laria breeding mosquitoes. About the Ancon hos- 
pital, malaria had already practically disappeared. The 
extent of malaria in the Canal Zone had been demon- 
strated by blood analyses. At Bohio the blood of for- 
ty-four school children had been examined and the 
malarial organism found in twenty-nine cases. After 
they had taken twelve grains of quinine daily for ten 
days the organism was only found in five. It was also 
found that seventy per cent, of the 12,000 inhabitants 
of twelve villages along the Zone had the malarial 
organism in the blood. This is largely the cause of 
the prevalent anemia. 

Colonel Gorgas had been appointed health officer 
of the city of Panama and of Colon by the Panama 
government, and health departments were being or- 
ganized in both cities. A systematic cleaning of dirty 
places (a Herculean task) and a rigid enforcement 
of modern sanitary laws and regulations had already 
been begun. The Zone commission was at work con- 
structing the new reservoir, about twelve miles from 
the canal, out of which Panama and the whole Zone 



FOR DOCTORS ONLY 133 

have since been supplied with healthy water. The 
people of Panama were using rain-water collected in 
cisterns for drinking and washing. In the rainy sea- 
son the streets flowed with it and the cisterns over- 
flowed; but in the dry season many of the 
reservoirs were empty, and there was practi- 
cally a water famine up to the time of my 
visit. Those who could afford it, drank imported 
waters, such as White Rock, Apollinaris, Vichy, etc. 
Why the people of Panama are not all dead long 
ago is past finding out. The animal kingdom from 
the mosquito up has preyed upon them, and the ele- 
ments have conspired against them, drenching 
them for six months of the year and burning them and 
devitalizing them during the other six. They have 
also conspired against themselves, having had a civil 
war on an average of almost once a year. The coun- 
try has been ravaged by adventurers and pirates in 
past centuries and beggared by Colombia in the pres- 
ent one. They have scarcely any developed resources. 
But now they have run under the wing of the United 
States, who will kill the mosquitoes for them, provide 
hospitals to take them in out of the sun and rain, 
make fresh ice-water to keep them cool, arbitrate for 
them to keep their peace, build a canal for them to 
increase their business, and will keep out the foreign 
foe when they are threatened. If such a sudden 
change from prostration to prosperity does not spoil 
the child then it deserves all it gets, and is fit to sur- 
vive. The French spoiled the Panamanians some- 
what, and made them dependent and parasitic, but it 



134 TO PANAMA 

is to be hoped that our influence will be to encourage 
the development and financial independence of the 
country. 

We were cordially invited to remain at Ancon and 
breakfast with the officers and their families at eleven 
o'clock. The breakfast seemed to be looked forward 
to with great pleasure and was made quite a social 
event by them. And I do not wonder that they en- 
joyed it after doing a good day's work while fasting. 
Their aim was never to put off until after breakfast 
what could be done before. They must have been rav- 
enous by eleven o'clock. But as our blood was heated 
and our collars wilting, we thought it better to get back 
to the hotel before the day became hotter. 

After our customary appetizer, to keep away Doc- 
tor Echeverria's melancholy and fulfill my vow to 
do as the Panamanians did, we went to our rooms and 
refreshed ourselves with cold water and fresh linen 
(both externally), and were prepared to appreciate 
a substantial breakfast. They brought us first a large 
dish of tiny clams (coquillos) cooked in their shells. 
These varied from the size of a small split pea to 
that of a lima bean, and were as finely flavored and 
delicious as their delicate physique indicated. We then 
had some very hot shirred eggs and made them hotter 
with a little Worcestershire sauce, which gave them 
a fine, tropical flavor. Then came Italian spaghetti 
daintily served, a medium-tough nicely cooked beef- 
steak, some juicy pineapple, too sweet to bear any 
sugar, and a small cup of deliciously bitter coffee 
which I subdued by the addition of a little evaporated 
cream. 



FOR DOCTORS ONLY 135 

I was glad that I had not spoiled my breakfast by 
eating eggs at eight o'clock, for I was very hungry 
when we sat down to it, and enjoyed it so much that 
I think it really must have been good. 



CHAPTER IX 

A Siesta and Such 

Preparations for a Panama Siesta — Barricading the Door 
— Interruption — Waiting for the End— Obliged to Get 
up — Opening the Box of Water — A Fatal Tip — An Imi- 
tation College Yell — Its Effectiveness — Horseback Riding 
— The High-toned Boarding Stable — Effect of Work upon 
Men and Animals in the Tropics — The Tramp and the 
Rich Man — Shopping — Tickets for the Bull-fight — Cigaret 
Smoking and the Habit — The Dusky Maiden — No Fool 
Hke an Old Fool — Biased Opinions — ^The War-cry — Town 
Gossip — A prescription for a Bottle of Beer — After- 
dinner Amusements — Ubi Tres Medici — Temperance of 
the Doctors — Mosquitoes and Poetry — The Night Watch- 
man. 

It was about noon when we finished our Spanish 
breakfast, and we agreed to take a siesta and meet 
again at half-past three. First, however, we stepped 
into a provision store in the next building and bought 
a case of fifty bottles of mineral water for use in our 
rooms. My American ancestors had drunk water 
for so many years that I had inherited the habit, and 
could not give it up, as many foreigners do, and we 
did not wish to be obliged to go to the bar every time 
we wanted a drink of water, for the bar-tender in- 
variably put something in it. 

I then went to my room to try the siesta and learn 
136 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 137 

just what it was like. By the time I had climbed to 
the top of the house I was in a profuse perspiration 
so that clothes became insufferable and a draft of air 
indispensable. Hence, after opening the door about 
six inches and putting my trunk against it, I pulled 
the bed in front of the window to enable it to catch 
the drafts and breezes, and hung the upper bed cover 
over the foot to shield me from the sight of any one 
who might peep around the edge of the barricaded 
door. After having tucked the edges of the life-sav- 
ing mosquito bar carefully under the mattress all 
around, I lay down with some of my clothes on. But 
the drafts and breezes were imperceptible and per- 
spiration was active, and I soon had to work one of 
the edges of the mosquito bar loose, crawl out of 
bed and divest myself of more clothes. By keeping 
perfectly quiet I now perspired freely only where I 
was in contact with the mattress, which would have 
been considered a hard and cool one for any place but 
Panama, where it was a hard one only. 

I began reading a Spanish novel to make me sleepy, 
as I had frequently done before. I read until my eyes 
and arms grew tired, when the book dropped and I 
began to doze off. Just then I was aroused with a 
start by a sudden loud knocking, and upon raising up 
and looking over the foot of the bed saw the swarthy 
mestizo bell boy's curly head projecting into the room. 
He was smiling like a satyr as he triumphantly an- 
nounced that the mineral water had come. I did not 
return the smile, but again dug my way out under the 
edges of the mosquito bar, slipped on an extra gar- 



138 TO PANAMA 

ment, pulled away the trunk and admitted him. After 
depositing the box he lingered as if he expected to 
open it for me; but by using considerable patience 
and many forcible expressions I finally got him out, 
undressed again, crawled under the edge of the bar, 
tucked it in laboriously and lay down to dry, and fin- 
ish my siesta in peace. But neither sleep nor soothing 
thoughts nor alleviating breezes would come. So I 
tried to read myself to sleep again, but the book would 
not functionate. I wanted to get up and stand behind 
the door ready to hit the bell boy's head with a chair 
the next time he peeked in ; but that would have made 
me drip. Besides it would have done him no good, 
for he would never have known what struck him. So 
I lay still. . . . 

After a long time the cathedral clock struck two 
and I felt thankful that the siesta was half over. After a 
still longer time I began to think that the middle-aged 
clock had run down. But it had not, for it finally struck 
half past. After another long interval of weary wait- 
ing, I began to grow sleepy again, when the clock 
struck three, and my siesta ended just when it was go- 
ing to begin. A faint breeze had begun to stir, 
and I had forgiven the bell boy and could have 
taken a peaceful nap, but had to keep my appointment 
with Doctor Echeverria. Encouraged by the faint 
breeze, I hoped, by moving about slowly and system- 
atizing the work, to be able to slip into my clothes 
without saturating them with perspiration. 

I became thirsty and wanted the bell boy to bring 
a hammer and open the box of mineral water. But 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 139 

there was no way of calling him, not even a gas pipe 
to pound on. So I put on my overcoat, stole across 
the hall, through the empty room opposite and found 
him lounging on the veranda ready to halloa whenever 
the gong sounded. I gave him my message, returned 
to my room and waited, pitying the poor Spanish 
people for not knowing better than to select for the 
siesta the only two hours in the day during which it 
is impossible to sleep. 

In about fifteen minutes the boy appeared with an 
old shoe and broke open the box with it. I felt to- 
ward him as the Spanish banqueters felt toward Co- 
lumbus when he stood the egg on an end. I could 
have done it myself if I had known how it was going 
to be done. I now made the mistake of my trip to 
the tropics, for I gave the boy a fee, a harmless-look- 
ing Colombian twenty-cent piece. I had felt like mur- 
dering him for doing his duty an hour before, and 
wished to do the right thing now by myself. He 
promptly accepted the money but did not go away. 
He asked what else he could do for me. Could he not 
clean the room, fill the water pitcher, open another 
bottle, etc. He was as persistent as an insurance 
agent to whom you have rashly given your age. I 
said "no" after each question, and after the last one 
said as loudly and emphatically as possible that I did 
not want anything, not even him. He stood and 
looked blankly at me with that powerful silence which 
is the safe refuge of empty intellects. He was not 
an insurance agent. The insurance agent does not 
understand the value of silence. But to use strong 



I40 TO PANAMA 

terms in Spanish does not come natural to a student 
of the language, for the books and teachers only teach 
mild and proper words, and the Spaniards one meets 
and practices upon use only polite phrases. So I 
found it difficult to convince the fellow that I was fu- 
rious. I could only be furiously polite. Yet to give 
a person a piece of your mind is, after all, to give away 
a portion of your own without adding anything to 
his, or getting anything in return. Hence I gave up 
trying to explain anything and shouted: 

"No, no! Nada, nada! Vayase, vayase! Aburr-r!" 
(No, no! Nothing, nothing! Begone, begone! Adieu!) 

Then a ray of intelligence illumined his counte- 
nance, and he said in a low, matter-of-fact tone of 
voice, ''Me voy" (I go), and slowly walked out. 

But this was only the beginning of the troubles 
brought upon me by the silverpiece. A goldpiece 
could not have done worse. Every time I went up- 
stairs either the male, or else the female, chamber- 
maid would follow me into my room to tidy it or 
ask to do some errand. Or, if I was not followed, he 
or she was sure to open the door about the time I was 
in demi toilette, for they always tried the door before 
knocking. In my disgust and haste to get them out 
I would mix up my Spanish metaphors and polite 
phrases and stutter helplessly, particularly if it was 
the female chambermaid with her mature although 
maidenly smile. As there was but one key, I began 
leaving it in the door during my absence so that they 
could bring as many pitcherfuls of water and clean up 
the room as often as it pleased them, and thus earn 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 141 

their twenty cents without my help. Upon entering 
I invariably locked the door and at the first knock 
called out, "No, no! Nada, nada! Vayase, vayase! 
Aburr-r!'' imitating as closely as possible the manner 
of students giving their college yell. Finally they 
came to understand, and would start away as soon as 
I commenced. I had conquered them. But I had 
learned that the conqueror's lot is not a happy one. Let 
others go through the strenuous process of conquering. 
Passive peace is good enough for me. 

Finally I became so habituated to answering the 
knocking on the door with my imitation college yell 
that I gave it one day when Doctor Echeverria 
knocked, and thus frightened him away. He asked 
me afterward with whom I was having words — he had 
never heard one of our college yells. So I told him 
the whole story, and asked him the best course to pur- 
sue with mestizo boys and musty old maids. He told 
me to have faith, hope and charity, but most of all 
hope — to order them around a great deal in order 
to show that I expected service and was going to pay 
for it, but not to fee them until the day of my depar- 
ture. We followed out this plan with our table 
waiter and obtained good service. As in doing every- 
thing else, a man who gives tips should learn how. 

When at last my toilet was finished I went down to 
the office with a good color and a moist skin. Doctor 
Echeverria and Seiior McGill had been awaiting me 
for some time, and thought that I must have slept 
long and well during my siesta, 

Sefior McGill was fond of horses, in accordance 



142 TO PANAMA 

with the prevalent fashion among Panama bachelors 
who, in lieu of taking a wife, were in the habit of 
taking a horseback ride every afternoon. And the 
ladies smiled upon them, apparently in approval. Af- 
ter we had been to the cable office to send the doctor's 
cablegram to his wife at San Jose, the sefior took us 
to the highest-toned boarding stable in town, where 
were kept eight so-called fine horses. He admired 
them greatly and pointed out one or two good quali- 
ties in two or three of them. But I picked out three 
or four bad points in five or six of them, and told 
him that, as a bachelor and lover of horses, he should 
neither accept a horse nor a wife without asking some 
one with experience to point out their bad qualities, 
since good qualities could be overcome, but bad ones 
never. The fine ( ?) horses were imported, the best 
and largest one from Brazil ; yet even that one, al- 
though of heavy Percheron shape, was rather small 
and scrubby, a work horse but not big enough to 
work. The tropics may be a good place for wild ani- 
mals who take their exercise by night, and domestic 
animals who do not take any; but animals and men 
who habitually do active hard work, develop poorly 
and degenerate rapidly. If a man or an animal, how- 
ever, does not and will not work, the tropics are the 
place for him. An amount of active work that is nec- 
essary to keep a man well and in working order in 
Chicago would soon kill a white man in Panama, 
while an amount of inactivity that would make a 
man sick in Chicago does him good there. 

Tramps should go to Panama and by lying fallow 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 143 

renew the exhausted and dissipated physical stock of 
their ancestry. There they can feast on the plentiful 
bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas and breadfruit, 
take siestas under inviting palm trees, and lodge cheap- 
ly under wayside wagons, or in dried mudholes, ac- 
cording to the season. They need not toil, neither need 
they spin, yet not Solomon with all his wives to keep 
his house from him ever took the comfort they can 
take. Never to be cold or hungry, nor to be re- 
proached for improvidence, nor be brought to want 
for not working, nor to be dependent upon saloons 
and jails to keep from starving and freezing; such is 
the paradise awaiting them on the isthmus. 

Only the rich man can not take advantage of the 
conditions in Panama. The waiters are not well 
enough trained, the first breakfast is too skimpy, ex- 
tras are too difficult to procure, furniture is too un- 
comfortable, perspiration too wet, etc. The rich man 
starves, tires out, gets sick and has to return to the 
North, with its steam-heated houses and complex cui- 
sine, to save his life and live in comfort — if the rich 
ever do live in comfort. Some think they do, but they 
don't — although they might easily learn how froni 
their servants. 

We shopped a little, buying Porto Rican straw hats, 
duck trousers and other thin clothes, and found the 
prices about the same as those in the United States 
for similar articles of good quality, but much cheaper 
than in Costa Rica. Although the tickets were not 
yet on sale, we engaged seats for the bull-fight that 
was to take place Sunday, January ist. I had never 



144 TO PANAMA 

seen a bull-fight, although I often had wished to, I 
did not hanker after the so-called entertainment, but 
as a student of the Spanish people and of their litera- 
ture I considered it a ceremony of educational and 
emotional value. We had intended visiting some of 
the Chinese silk and curio stores, but the general cus- 
tom of closing at about five o'clock made it necessary 
to postpone this part of it. As we were four or five 
blocks from home, my companions insisted upon tak- 
ing a cab to the hotel. I preferred walking, which 
was better for the health, but being in Panama had 
to do as the Panamanians did. The five-minute ride, 
however, cooled us off and made us feel better, show- 
ing that the end justified the means. 

During our walk and ride Seiior McGill kept light- 
ing cigarets and would have kept us doing the same 
if we had not refused. Doctor Echeverria did not 
smoke and I only smoked cigars. The seiior was, 
however, very moderate for a South American, for 
he only smoked about a dozen cigarets during the af- 
ternoon. One of our delegates, a physician from San 
Salvador, said that he smoked about seventy-five a 
day, and that many of his acquaintances did likewise. 
It serves to keep men occupied, just as embroidering 
and knitting serve to keep women occupied. As the 
tobacco in the Central and South American cigaret is 
very black and much stronger than in those made in 
the United States, I should say that seventy-five of 
the former would equal about a hundred and fifty of 
the latter in its effect upon the nerves. Evolution can 
go no farther. Such consummate cigaret fiends are 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 145 

however not common in the United States. Yet the 
habit seems to influence men badly whether they 
smoke strong or weak tobacco. The practice of smok- 
ing often, seems to grow on them until finally they 
want to light a cigaret every time they meet a friend 
or have a moment of leisure. They light one every 
time they sit down, again when they get up, and every 
time they hear news or wish to impart news to others. 
One can keep tab on their feelings and impressions 
and intentions by watching their cigaret play. The 
habit leads them to give way to their impulses and 
inclinations without resistance, and they finally get 
to smoking automatically, without thinking about it 
and without really enjoying it. They smoke with the 
same kind of nervous satisfaction that Napoleon 
walked the floor when he dictated correspondence, 
and with correspondingly direful results. It affects 
themselves and their friends, however, instead of their 
foes, for it keeps them smelling worse than a groom. 
The habitual cigaret smoker habitually smells. There 
is only one worse habit, and that is to go about pub- 
licly sucking an old pipe. This hurts every one with- 
in sight. 

Seiior McGill left us at the hotel, and the doctor 
and I went to our rooms to replace wilted linen. I 
had just removed my coat and collar, and was pulling 
my outer shirt over my head when the dusky maiden 
of many seasons came in to fix my room. I got a 
glimpse of her in time, and pulled the garment down 
with a jerk and cried, "Get out! Scat! Don't you 
know better than to frighten a man to death in this 
10 



146 TO PANAMA 

way?" I hadn't time to compose anything but plain 
EngHsh. 

"Si, senor!" she said, as she started for the water 
pitcher. 

"You've seen enough. Get out, I say." 
She merely smiled in a matter-of-fact way as if to 
say, "Don't mention it. I'll excuse it this time." 
Tropical women seem to know that men have no mod- 
esty, 

I was too nervous to speak Spanish, and she was 
too stupid to guess what my English meant, so I 
pointed sternly at the door. She looked at my out- 
stretched arm and, seeing no weapon in it, smiled 
again and said, "Si, senorl" 

Finally I got the combination and shouted: 
"No, no! Nada, nada! Vayase, vayase! Ahurr-r!" 
The formula was effective, for she stared at me 
with an expression of petticoat dignity and pop-eyed 
wonder which said plainer than words, "There is no 
fool like an old fool," and walked out. She must 
have thought that changing garments was a public 
ceremony, like snoring and seasickness. It was the 
last time I was caught with my door unlocked. 

After securing the door, I talked to the looking- 
glass and washstand until I was dressed. I wondered 
if the terrifying loneliness of the arctic regions was as 
hard on the nerves as the terrible sociability of the 
tropics. I found myself arguing with poor Weinin- 
ger, who committed suicide at the age of twenty-three. 
He said that woman was mere matter that could as- 
sume any shape. But this one was merely a mass of 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 147 

petticoat that couldn't assume any shape. Another 
man, who has not yet committed suicide, said that 
woman's face was the most beautiful thing in the 
world — he had not seen them all. 

All of the officials and local celebrities excepting 
President Amador, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Barrett were 
in the habit of stopping at the hotel on their way, or 
out of their way, home after business hours, or on 
their way from home after dinner, thus rendering 
the hotel corridor and barroom quite animated, and, 
of course, quite interesting to a stranger; so I went 
down-stairs to seek solace and safety in a crowd. Af- 
ter listening awhile to General Jeffries, who had 
fought in nearly all of the Central American repub- 
lics, and who had the right of way in Panama; and 
to an American contract agent who was attending to 
the building up of Central America and Cuba on 
North American lines; as well as to other more dis- 
tinctly local celebrities, discuss the conditions and 
prospects of the little republic, I was invited to take 
a bottle of beer with one of those typical United States 
old gentleman whom I had found ordering eggs for 
their early breakfast on the first morning after my 
arrival ,and who were making things so lively for the 
waiters. It was the quiet one who had allowed his 
large, formidable, rheumatic friend to fight the "'Bat- 
tle of the Eggs" for him. But it was now his turn to 
complain. The eggs had done their work, and the 
problem was how to get rid of eggs instead of how 
to get eggs. He had not lived as Panamanians did, 
and was not willing to die as they did when they 



148 TO PANAMA 

transgressed. I should have been much more willing 
to advise him if he had drunk my beer instead of 
making me drink it, but I could not offend him by 
refusing the most expensive treat next to champagne 
and, to my thinking, a better (?), pleasanter and less 
poisonous one. I really wanted to take imported bot- 
tled water, but I feared to offend him by making him 
pay fifty cents for a drink of water, when beer could 
be had for the same price. I gave him the prescrip- 
tion of my old professor, Dr. N. S. Davis, who lived 
to be eighty-five years old and always used it upon 
himself when similarly affected, viz., "R. Take neith- 
er food nor medicine until your stomach is all right 
again." Doctor Davis included all alcoholics in this 
prohibition of medicine, but I said nothing to my pa- 
tient about that. It would have disgusted him with 
me. 

Pretty soon Doctor Echeverria and Seiior McGill 
appeared, and we dutifully proceeded to take an 
aperitif preparatoire, for it was half after six and we 
would have to face a formidable bill of fare at seven. 
In a colder climate active exercise would have been 
considered a better appetizer for a hearty meal, but in 
hot climates an alcoholic stimulant is considered more 
enjoyable and quite efficacious. Senor McGill had 
even less the figure and fogosity of a high-liver than 
he had of a warrior, but he took something genuine, 
and went out to dinner with us and did himself honor, 
drinking iced claret in place of water. After dinner 
we returned to the hotel corridor and barroom and 
spent the evening talking and treating — all three of 



A SIESTA AND SUCH 149 

us, excepting Doctor Echeverria and myself, smoking 
cigar ets. 

"Ubi tres medici, ibi duo athei." 

I learned that on Thursday evenings from eight to 
ten o'clock a public concert was given in the open air 
at Plaza Santa Ana, and one on Sunday evenings in 
the Parque- del Catedral in front of our hotel. On 
other evenings there were about three things for the 
Panamanians to choose between, viz., to stay at home, 
undress and keep cool ; to go to one of the clubs and 
play cards ; or to lounge about the hotel and talk and 
drink alcoholic liquors or syrupy soft drinks {fres- 
coes) at regular intervals. I met Doctor Cook of 
Panama; Doctor Calvo, the secretary of the Pana- 
manian Medical Congress; Doctor Tomaselli, one of 
the busiest of the local practitioners, and other physi- 
cians, as well as a few non-professional citizens, and 
noticed that these physicians, as well as a few unpro- 
fessional citizens, avoided the barroom. They usually 
remained in the hotel corridor and did not remain long. 
Nearly all of the temperance men, however, drank 
soft drinks, and they were real men as far as exter- 
nals indicated. 

About nine o'clock Doctor Echeverria went out to 
call upon some friends, and I went across the street 
into the park and cooled off. The mosquitoes soon 
began to congregate, however, and I sneaked up to 
my bedroom, escaping the argus-eyed bell boy and 
bully girl. I locked the door quickly, undressed in 
the dark and after carefully tucking in the edges of 
the mosquito bar, crawled under it, thinking of Bry- 
ant's stanzas addressed to the mosquito. 



150 ■ TO PANAMA . 

Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, 

And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong, 

Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, 
Rose in the sky, and bore thee soft along. 

The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way 
And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay. 

Calm rose afar the city spires, and thence 

Came the deep murmur of its throngs of men, 

And as its grateful odors met thy sense, 

They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen. 

Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight 
Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight. 

I lay listening to the cathedral clock strike the hours 
and half -hours. Every time the clock struck during 
the night, the night watchman blew his whistle to 
awaken people and remind them that he was awake. 
Chicago policemen wake up their headquarters only. 
The promptitude of the whistling made one of our 
doctors think that the whistling was done by the clock, 
and was to awaken the watchman only. 



CHAPTER X 

About Town 

Early Breakfast — ^The "Gentleman of the Eggs" Again — 
How to Eat the Juice of an Orange — Panama Shops — 
Chinese Silks and Curios — Purchases — Trying to Beat 
Down a Chinaman's Price — The Market — Chinatown — 
Assortment of Smells — Chinese Style — A Large Stock — 
The Doctor's Extravagance — Idleness the Cause of In- 
judicious Buying — Another Lesson in Siestas — The dolce 
far niente of It — Another Interruption — Nada, Nada! — 
New Year's Resolutions — The Usual Visit to the Cable 
Office — Las Lonely Bovedas — Extension of Sewers to Low 
Water Line — The Odor Worse than the Poison — The 
Remedy — The Prison — The Barracks — Goats Versus 
Cows — Narrow Streets and Ruins — Chicago Again in the 
Lead — Unserviceable Sidewalks — Rich Food Eaten in 
the Tropics — The Promenade Concert — Costumes and 
Customs. 

At coffee I found the portly old "Gentleman of the 
Eggs" in his place at the head of the table, as confi- 
dent and contented as a successful South American 
revolutionist. Things were going his way — beefsteak, 
fried potatoes, camareros and congestion. 

Doctor Echeverria came in and showed me how to 
peel and eat an orange. He thrust a sharp-pronged 
fork into one end, peeled it with a sharp table knife 
the same as one pares an apple and began biting into 
it. After finishing it, all of the fibrous portion re- 

151 



152 TO PANAMA 

mained on the fork and the juice only had been eaten. 
This is the way a fluid can be eaten. The old gentle- 
man looked askance at the performance as if he con- 
sidered it a foreign fraud, but did not alarm those 
who were not looking at him ; and everything went 
well. 

After coffee we sent a cablegram to the doctor's 
wife, and proceeded to hunt up a Chinese store. All 
stores in Panama are, in point of size, shops, for al- 
though some of them have a frontage of twenty-five 
feet, in a few instances of fifty feet, they are shallow, 
the great majority being not more than twenty-five 
feet deep. Thus the stores as well as the streets are 
mere bumping places. 

The duties on silk and, I believe, on nearly all goods 
are low. Hence, although scarcely anything is manu- 
factured or made in Panama, the prices are usually 
moderate. But so many things are imported from the 
United States that I had to be careful not to buy goods 
that had been brought from the United States. In 
such cases I would pay the increased prices resulting 
from the moderate Panama duties, and then pay the 
immoderate American duties upon bringing them 
back. The Chinese silk and curio stores had the usual 
things that they have in the United States. In addi- 
tion to this the Chinese kept provision stores of all 
sizes and grades where they sold groceries, liquors, 
fruits, dried and canned goods, and other delicacies 
demanded by their numerous countrymen and native 
customers. 

By way of introduction I bought some feather 



ABOUT TOWN 153 

fans and bronze sea cows. I then called for a 
skeleton coat. The Chinaman looked at my arms and 
legs and said that he did not keep skeleton clothes, 
but had some about my size, and brought out a white 
shiny silk sack coat for twelve dollars. As I only 
wanted it for a week's wear in Panama and a couple 
of days on the Caribbean Sea, the coat would cost me 
more than a dollar for each day's wear. Had I been 
younger and more enterprising I should have em- 
braced the opportunity of wearing an imported coat 
that cost a dollar a day while worn, and would have 
discarded it at the end of ten days in order not to 
spoil its record ; but I allowed the opportunity to pass 
and called for something cheaper. The Chinaman 
showed me a similar coat for ten dollars and said; 

"Vely cheapee." 

"More cheapee," I said. 

He showed me one for eight dollars. 

"Still more cheapee, much more cheapee." 

He then brought out one for three dollars that 
looked the same to me, and would catch the Panama 
dust and filter the Caribbean showers just as faith- 
fully as if I paid twelve dollars for it. I gave him a 
five-dollar bill and received seven dollars back. I then 
spied a beautiful piece of silk embroidery and drawn- 
work about as wide as a door mat and a little longer. 
I guessed it to be a bureau cover but called it a door 
mat, for short. 

"How muchee?" I asked. 

"Eight dollah." 

"What? Eight dollah for door mat? No go. It 



154 TO PANAMA 

looks well but it wouldn't last an hour in Chicago. It 
is full of holes. I never pay for holes. Deduct for 
the holes and I'll buy it." 

"No put him out doah. Keep him in house." 

"Oh, I see, he is a towel. But when we wash in 
Chicago we use muchee water. It would take three 
of him for one wiping, and then there would be no 
opportunity for friction. Such a towel — — " 

"No towel. Put him on table," interrupted the 
Chinaman, with a trace of alteration in the tone of 
his voice. 

"Oh, a napkin? Why, every time I'd wipe my 
mouthee the soupee would come through these con- 
founded holes on my hands. You must obliterate 
them if you wish to sell him. He's a regular skele- 
ton." 

"Not for eatee — for pollah table, for buleau — lookee 
pletty." 

"Oh, a sort of tidy for the bureau. But these holes 
spoil him, I say. The dirt would show right through 
him. Here, I'll give you six doUah for him. Quickee 
— comee — bargain — cashee — hoop lah !" I tried to 
carry the bargain by storm. 

The Chinaman could not deny that dirt would show 
through the drawn-work. He looked perplexed and 
human, but his speech had the sound of a talking 
machine. 

"Sem dollah ninety-fye cent." 

"Sew up the holes," I said, "and I'll give it. No- 
body '11 ever buy him full of holes. Why he couldn't 
hold water, he wouldn't even hold molasses. Here's 
your six dollah, last chancee." 



ABOUT TOWN 155 

"Bully hole! Vela fine hole! Sem dollah ninety- 
fye cent. Allee hole flee in bahgain." As he said this 
his words became animated, but his face was like yel- 
low wax. 

"No fleas or flea holes in mine. You'll never sell 
him to a Yankee with those flea holes in him. Good- 
bye!" 

He eyed me with patient disgust and put away his 
finery. As I went out he said, "Bettee fye dollah sell 
him to-mollah." 

I knew that the piece was worth eight dollars in 
Colombian money, but I didn't like to give in, and 
thought it quite as well to return another time and 
buy it. But when I did return three days later the 
Chinaman pretended that the bureau cover was gone, 
thinking probably that I wanted to claim the five 
dollars that he had offered to bet. He did not seem 
anxious to sell me anything. But I had taken a fancy 
to the cover and wanted it. I offered him eight dollah 
and fye cent, but he said: 

"Allee gone." 

I offered him nine dollah. 

"Allee gone." 

I offered him ten dollah. 

"Allee gone." 

So I also went, cured of my conceit as a shopper 
and business man. I had the best of the bargain, how- 
ever, for the cover didn't cost me anything. In my 
subsequent shopping I soon learned that the amount 
a Chinaman would throw off was so insignificant that 
it was not worth while to ask it. In fact, it is a good 



156 TO PANAMA 

thing to offer him five cents more than he asks to 
make him jump about and show his goods with more 
zeal. As we passed out I noticed that the doctor had 
bought several things of considerable value for his 
wife. 

We then sauntered leisurely down to the street 
that skirted the seashore, passing the market on our 
way. The market was a large fenced, rectangular 
area with a galvanized iron roof. It projected over 
the sea wall, giving opportunity for the disposal of 
all dirt by merely throwing it out, supposing, of 
course, that it were possible to get rid of all of the 
dirt in the place. It was much better constructed 
and arranged than the market at Colon, and was well 
supplied with dirty counters and dirty booths where 
dirty Chinamen, dirty negroes and dirty mestizos 
sold dirty fruit, dirty fish, dirty vegetables, etc., all 
of which should have gone over the sea wall instead 
of over the palate. 

Arriving at the end of the street where it was cut 
off by an inward curve of the shore line, we turned 
at right angles to the left into a street about a quar- 
ter of a mile long and were, commercially speaking, 
in Chinatown. The ground-floor front of many of 
the houses were little Chinese stores, and most of the 
inhabitants that we saw were Chinese. And before we 
had finished our walk along the shore, through the 
market and up this street, we were prepared to endorse 
the saying that Panama had a separate smell for every 
turn of the head. A blind man could soon learn to 
find his way around easily and unerringly. 



ABOUT TOWN 157 

Up near the main street, where our little street end- 
ed, we came to a large, clean-looking Chinese silk 
and dry-goods store with an imposing entrance. A 
private carriage was standing in front of it, although 
upon entering we did not find any one who looked as 
if he or she had ever possessed or even driven in a 
carriage. Indeed, on two other occasions I saw a 
carriage, presumably the same one, in the same place, 
but never discovered a possible owner shopping there. 
Hence I inferred that the carriage belonged to the es- 
tablishment, and was kept there to impress strangers 
by making them believe that rich customers frequent- 
ed the place. The store had two front rooms, a main 
room for all sorts of articles, and a smaller one for 
silk. We went into the silk room where we found a 
beautiful display of a costly embroidered silk in the 
show-cases, and in innumerable pasteboard boxes on 
shelves reaching almost up to the ceiling. 

The proprietor, who waited upon us, was a plump, 
handsome, courteous, intelligent and exceedingly dig- 
nified Chinaman. When Chinamen grow fat they of- 
ten become good looking; those that remain thin re- 
main ugly, like the rest of us. He showed us all sorts 
of finery, and Doctor Echeverria let himself out. 
Whenever the doctor saw silks and embroidery and 
a Chinaman he thought of his wife, and whenever he 
thought of his wife he thought of silks and embroi- 
dery and Chinamen. In Costa Rica the tariff is very 
high on silks, and the market is probably not good. 
We examined many things and made the Chinaman 
send for more goods from his store-rooms. The doc- 



158 _ TO PANAMA 

tor wasted no time talking, but bought freely: scarfs, 
shawls, fans, waists, kimonas, doilies, table covers, 
etc., for his wife, and handkerchiefs, neckties, etc., 
for himself. 

But this was not all, for we made other visits. 

Finally one day he opened his mouth upon the sub- 
ject and said, "I'm. buying too much. I must keep 
away from these stores." 

I thought so too, and wondered how he would find 
room enough in his trunks for all of the goods, and 
what the Costa Rica custom officers would do to him. 
I have since also been curious to know if his wife, 
after seeing these things, told him, as my wife told me 
when I presented my purchases, that she could have 
bought the same at home just as cheaply, and could 
have selected things she wanted. My wife would have 
perhaps obtained more at home for the money, but I 
would not have gotten the romance out of it. I needed 
the experience. A little chivalry toward one's wife is 
worth more than money. 

At home I never enter Chinese shops. Being busy, 
and therefore in a normal mental state, I act rationally 
and do not buy Chinese silks and jimcracks. But in 
Panama I had nothing useful to do, and was there- 
fore apt to do things I should not have done. When 
the mind is preoccupied with buying stocks one buys 
them more or less freely and precipitately; when it is 
preoccupied with buying Chinese silks one is apt to 
buy more than one's wife needs or wants. 

The shrewd insurance agents, book agents, art 
venders and irresponsible promoters take advantage 



ABOUT TOWN 159 

of this fact at home where you can not escape them. 
They take up so much of your time and talk so much 
about insurance, books, pictures or investments that 
they communicate to you their own paid-for enthusi- 
asm on the subject. They hammer it into your brain 
cells by prolonged and repeated nerve impressions 
until the brain cells are temporarily mcxiified to re- 
produce the impression involuntarily, so that "insure, 
insure," or "buy, buy," is continually running through 
your mind. You are hypnotized. The only way to de- 
termine whether you want an insurance policy or a 
book or a picture or a fortune from the agent or pro- 
moter, is to get away from him or her for forty-eight 
hours, and sleep over the problem twice. The impres- 
sions of the agent's sonorous or perhaps insinuating 
voice will then have become weakened, and you will 
find that you do not want either an insurance policy, a 
book, a picture or a gold mine. 

After lunch I went up to my room to take another 
private lesson in siestas. The barricading of the door, 
the removing of superfluous clothing, the careful tuck- 
ing in of the mosquito bar under the mattress all 
around, futile efforts to stop thinking and keep from 
perspiring, and protracted attempts to read Spanish 
novels, made of the siesta a not insignificant part of 
the day's work. It was not the dolce far niente, the 
Traeumerei, the dreamy dozing so dear to the ima- 
gination of degenerates. My character was unfor- 
tunately already formed ; I had my limitations, and 
could not adapt and reconcile myself to the popular 
siesta hoax. A tropical siesta is not a sleep; it is a 



i6o TO PANAMA 

broil in which the victim does the turning over and 
seasoning himself. t 

Finally, however, at the end of an hour and a half 
by the cathedral clock, twelve hours by the hour-glass 
in my brain, I seemed to be well done, and slowly siz- 
zled off into a simulated sunstroke, only to be awak- 
ened as on the day before by those knockout blows 
on my door. I aroused myself and saw the bell boy 
peeking in. 

"The washing, the washing," he said hastily, and 
was evidently anxious to anticipate and avoid the ex- 
pected torrent of dreadful Spanish. But I was too 
discouraged to compose epithets. Epitaphs' were more 
in keeping with the situation, and one was due him. So 
I crawled out of bed, made a toga out of a towel, re- 
moved the barricade from the door and took the 
bundle. I then wiped my forehead and looked at him. 
He stood like a black Pompeian statue with the white 
of its staring eyes fixed upon me. I began, "Nada, 
nada!" — and the thing glided out. It was becoming 
intelligent at last. 

But it was still too hot to keep clothes on, and I 
had to crawl into my mosquito cage and make up 
my mind to stay there until the three o'clock breeze 
made itself felt. As the new year was only two days 
off, I passed the time making New Year's resolutions. 
I made about a hundred, but could only remember a 
dozen or so of them afterward. I resolved: 

Never to take a siesta or a dolce far niente in the 
future, but to be satisfied with a plain nap when I 
felt the need of it. 



ABOUT TOWN i6i 

Not to return to Panama until a Yankee hotel had 
reconstructed the country. 

Not to personally undertake the reformation of the 
tropics. 

Not to train the servants of aliens. 

Not to begin by getting hot when I wanted to keep 
cool. 

Not to be a conqueror. 

Not to do in Rome as the Romans ,did. 

Not to take a Turkish bath and call it a siesta. 

Not to drink frescoes when I wanted water. 

Not to do the tropics, nor let the tropics do me. 

Not to have opinions, but try to understand things. 

Not to be eloquent when silence would suffice. 

Not to care when it couldn't help. 

Not to know everything. 

Not to want anything. 

Not to make any new resolutions until the old ones 
were worn out or broken. 

Finally at half past three I arose, shut and locked 
the door, drank a bottle of imported lukewarm water, 
cooled myself by washing my chest and body with so- 
called cold water, and felt more or less refreshed. 

After I had been down-stairs a few minutes. Doc- 
tor Echeverria and, later, Senor Arango appeared, 
and we started for the cable office to send a message 
to the doctor's wife and enquire after the one he had 
not yet received. If one had come it would have been 
sent to the hotel, but he went and enquired morning 
and evening, just for the love of it, or of her, I sup- 
posed. At any rate, he couldn't help it. 
11 



i62 TO PANAMA 

We then went for a promenade on the Bovedas 
along the seashore. The tide, which rises thirteen 
feet, was out and the flat rocky bed of the bay lay ex- 
posed for more than a hundred yards. Two men of 
slow and deliberate intentions were digging a trench 
from the sea wall out to the water's edge at low tide 
for the benefit of the sewer pipes. The sewers which 
emptied just outside of the sea wall were to be ex- 
tended out to that point. This improvement would 
do away with some of the bad smells that had followed 
the daily exposure of the sea bottom by the recession 
of the water. The bad smells at low tide did not, 
however, seem to cause much sickness, the regular re- 
turn of the salt water acting as a disinfectant and 
douche. The offense to the olfactories was probably 
the worst feature of the emptying of the sewage near 
the shore. Individual perfumery would have been 
cheaper and perhaps more efficacious, but the men had 
not thought of that, and the ladies had never told 
them. Whether it was too early in the day for prome- 
nading, or whether there was but little promenading 
done on Las Bovedas I do not know (probably both), 
but the only fashionable people we met were Senor 
McGill and his party, consisting of two ladies and a 
gentleman besides himself. A few children and two 
men of the poorer class were the only other persons 
visible. 

We arrived in a few minutes at the end of the lovely 
but lonely promenade where it turned upon itself 
and led us down to the low ground just inside of the 
sea wall. Here the soldiers' barracks, the city jail 






OCEAN FRONT AT PANAMA 

Tide Out, Showing the Sea Wall and Bottom of the Sea 



ABOUT TOWN 163 

and a good parade ground of three or four acres were 
situated. We saw many prisoners and a few sol- 
diers. The prisoners were confined under the vaults 
that supported the promenade. Hence the name Las 
Bovedas, the vaults. They were closed on the outer 
side by the solid sea wall and on the inner side by 
iron grating. Light and air entered the cellars thus 
formed from one side only, through the iron grating, 
leaving the deeper portions so dark that we could not 
see into them. The light space near the grating was 
teeming with prisoners of both sexes, mostly negroes 
and mixed breeds, who seemed to be uncomfortably 
crowded in an exceedingly unhealthy place. Just be- 
yond the jail was a plain, rectangular brick building, 
in which the soldiers were lodged, and beyond this 
were some dilapidated frame houses, ragged children, 
dirty goats and drowsy vultures. 

Doctor Echeverria wished to buy a herd of goats 
for his children and take them to San Jose; but al- 
though goats were plenty he could only find one good 
one. They had subsisted on straw hats and stray 
shoes so long that most of them were getting bald and 
leathery on their backs and sides. Cows and fodder 
are rather scarce in Central American cities and the 
facilities for keeping the milk fresh are not good, 
hence the desirability of a herd of goats which can be 
starved when corn husks are dear, and can be driven 
from house to house to be milked as milk is wanted 
for use. This provides sterile, undiluted milk, rich 
enough for coffee and more digestible and nourish- 
ing for children than the best of cows' milk that has 



1 64 TO PANAMA 

been milked several hours before being used, or that 
has been artificially sterilized. I should think that 
Central America, and particularly Panama and the 
neighborhood of the Canal Zone, would be a profita- 
ble place for large goat dairies. The goats could eat 
all night on the sabanas, manufacturing morning 
milk from the midnight grass and stubble, and walk 
the streets of Panama city all day, clearing the town 
of rubbish and giving certified milk to all. They could 
take a daily siesta from i to 3 P. M. in the Par que de 
la Catedral and in Par que de la Iglesia de Santa Ana, 
giving the town rubbish a chance to form fresh milk 
for afternoon delivery. It would be a blessing to our 
children in the United States if milch-goats could re- 
place milch-cows, which can not safely be starved and 
neglected, and it would aid materially in clearing our 
homes and streets of tuberculosis and waste paper 
— the two white plagues. 

In returning we passed through quaint and narrow 
streets with their small and old-fashioned houses, 
and here and there a ruin. Some of the old church 
ruins are very picturesque and very ruinous, although 
none of them so ponderous, pretentious and danger- 
ous as was our old Cook County court building at Chi- 
cago, the world's most magnificent specimen of popular 
and political ruin. "Si caput videas, ferias," was its 
motto, and for a long time it threatened to crush the 
head of the solitary passerby who did not keep his dis- 
tance, or to lie down suddenly on the crowd that ven- 
tured too near. The citizens had to be protected against 
it. Experts on architectural degeneracy reported that 



ABOUT TOWN 165 

its angle of velocity was accelerated, its angle of repose 
faulty, and that its lateral parts showed great fatigue. 
So complete and perfect a ruin was never before ma- 
tured at so rapid a rate. It made a new record and 
set a new pace for municipal dissolution, for without 
the aid of quakes, tornadoes or the help of time, it 
prumbled so rapidly and steadily that it could not 
be kept up long enough to get into guide books and 
attract tourists. Thus Chicago leads in ruin as well as 
in rush. In its place we have the new county building, 
which is a ruin of architectural art — a icolumnat- 
ed parallelopiped. Its two-story basement is an 
example of bewindowed weakness. Its high and 
heavy columns have but little support and sup- 
port but little; they are too stuck up, too de- 
sirous of being looked up to. But Chicago is not 
yet a great architect; the University of Chicago is a 
better one. Chicago's specialty lies in a rampant repe- 
tition of rectangular windows without any walls, its 
variety in a massive superfluity of meaningless stone 
carved and crusted with architectural trumpery; its 
exception in an occasional magnificent success. 

The Panama sidewalks were too narrow for the 
enjoyment of a walk. In order to walk side by side, 
two of us had to walk on the cobblestones, and as the 
third one was too polite to monopolize the whole side- 
walk, we all walked on the cobblestones, and thus took 
up the whole street. But as we never met a vehicle 
in these parts it did not matter except to our feet. We 
might have walked single file on the sidewalk, but as 
I was the only one not too polite to walk ahead, and 



i66 TO PANAMA 

both of the others were too polite to take the second 
place, the cobblestones were the only alternative. An 
advantage, however, of the use of the street was that 
we did not have to step off the sidewalk into the de- 
pression intended for a ditch every time we passed 
anyone. This passing of people on the twenty-five 
inch sidewalks in Panama was almost as difficult as 
passing people in Chicago on our twenty-five foot 
sidewalks. 

When we reached the hotel it was time for an appe- 
tizer, which we dutifully drank in preparation for a 
tour-de-force dinner. I formerly thought that in 
the tropics men lived mostly on fruits, rice, light vege- 
tables and, if they worked hard, an occasional egg, 
taking but little meat or greasy, mixed dishes. But 
my experiences in Cuba, on the Italian ship and in 
Panama have taught me that the people eat as heartily, 
or more so, of greasy food as in northern portions of 
the United States, where we subsist too much upon 
our home-made cereals that overfill and underfeed us. 

As it was Thursday evening there was to be a con- 
cert in the Plasa de la Iglesia de Santa Ana at eight 
o'clock, and my companions dined with some friends 
in town preparatory to attending it with them. So I 
had to go through the paces of dinner alone — and 
succeeded. I then sat around the hotel corridor until 
eight o'clock when the air had become cooler, but not 
cool, and my stomach lighter, but not light, and 
strolled leisurely to the Plaza de la Iglesia de Santa 
Ana, about half a mile away. The musicians were 
playing in one corner of the square and the people 



ABOUT TOWN 167 

promenading in the park which, as in Plasa Central, 
occupied the entire square except the peripheral space 
taken up by the streets. The men were, as a rule, 
dressed in evening or afternoon dress, as if for pro- 
tection against cold, while the ladies were draped in all 
sorts of flimsiness appropriate to the weather — white, 
gauzy, fleecy, fluffy and pretty. Their clothes were 
as appropriate as those of the men were inappropriate, 
which is quite the reverse of the methods of dress in 
the North, where the men dress for comfort, and the 
ladies for the men. Around and around the outer 
edge, of the park they walked, some in one direction, 
some in the opposite, passing and repassing each other, 
laughing and talking and apparently unconscious of 
the increasing monotony of it all. But a large pro- 
portion of the promenaders were young, and to youth 
nothing is monotonous but inactivity. 

The main street passed by the plaza constituting 
the front side; the church occupied the opposite side, 
forming a fine background with the dense, electrically 
lighted foliage in the middle, and the illuminated, 
brilliant throrfg moving around the edges. Whenever 
the music started, the crowd became more animated 
and the whole scene presented something romantic or 
fairylike to the spectator. The music was of a loud 
Spanish character, very appropriate in the open air, 
and the pieces, which varied from popular to classic, 
were well played. 

After becoming somewhat weary from carrying my 
course dinner around, I stepped into the shadows of 
the trees and took a seat on a bench to listen with 



1 68 TO PANAMA 

comfort to the music, and watch the young people 
chatter and enjoy each other as only the young can, 
I resolved that if providence or a vigorous digestion 
should ever give me back my youth I would make 
myself enjoy trifles also. But some men never grow 
young, and trifles never become important to them. 

I concluded that the Panama Physicians must also 
have overfilled stomachs and an apathy for trifles, 
for none of them were there promenading and lemon- 
ading. 



CHAPTER XI 

Town Topics 

Waiting for the Bull-fight — Daily Newspapers — Death from 
Yellow Fever — Fate of Mr. Dingler's Family — Doctor 
Echeverria Receives the Cablegram at Last — Walks to 
the Seashore — The National Lottery — The Cathedral — 
A Titled Doctor of the Past — Ruins — A Ruin within a 
Ruin — Business Hours — Baths and Economy of Water — 
Proposed Improvements. 

The next two days, Friday and Saturday, were 
days of waiting for the Sunday bull-fight. Panama 
is a small city of 20,000 inhabitants and there was 
nothing doing, as the saying is, excepting the walk 
to the cable office morning and evening with Doctor 
Edheverria in quest of the cablegram from San Jose 
that had not arrived. For an ignorant person like 
myself, however, who had gone there knowing noth- 
ing about the ways of the people in the tropics, and 
had only learned a couple of days before to go in out 
of the sun, there was interest and instruction in every- 
thing. 

I spent a part of the time sitting about the barber 
shop, the hotel corridor and the barroom studying 
local customs, and reading the daily Estrella (Star 
and Herald) and El Diario (The Daily). The news- 
papers were printed in both English and Spanish and 

169 



I70 TO PANAMA 

contained short but very good extracts from the lat- 
est authenticated world news. One did not have to 
read twelve illustrated and illuminated pages to find 
two doubtful facts that would be contradicted the 
next day. Much of the talk was about the death, 
which had just been announced, of the wife of Chief 
Engineer Wallace's secretary of yellow fever. The 
young secretary had gone North to marry her, and 
had brought her to Panama to become a victim within 
a few weeks. Her death cast a gloom over the com- 
munity and was certainly not an encouraging and 
comforting experience for Mr. and Mrs. Wallace. 
It reminded us of the fate of Mr. Dingier, one of the 
chief engineers of the Panama Canal under the 
French regime, who brought his wife and two sons 
to Panama and lost all three of yellow fever in one 
month. His troubles produced melancholia and he 
had to give up his work. 

These were isolated instances of such misfortunes 
in high stations of life, and were indicative of many 
equally distressing but generally unknown or quickly 
forgotten ones in more humble stations. This does 
not apply to the Jamaica negroes, however, who think 
that they are suffering from too much hygiene. Instead 
of yellow fever they are contracting catarrh and pneu- 
monia in their new, well-ventilated sleeping quarters. 
Health, wealth and prosperity, like everything else, 
should be enjoyed in moderation. 

On Friday evening Doctor Echeverria received the 
longed-for cablegram from his wife, and again took 
interest in ordinary mundane trivialities. I missed 



TOWN TOPICS 171 

our walks to the cable office, which was situated at 
the upper end of the city where it extended out upon 
a projecting piece of land. I enjoyed going there to 
gaze at the picturesque shores, the green islands and 
the dark blue sky and sea, and feel romantic. These 
walks also took care of considerable superfluous time 
that would have been spent sitting about the hotel, 
and they kept us in touch with the common people and 
cobble pavements. As it was the end of the week, 
numerous old, half-breed Indian women, and an oc- 
casional Chinaman, wandered about the streets ped- 
dling tickets for the Panama National Lottery, which 
had a drawing every Sunday. The tickets were divid- 
ed into halves and quarters to represent" the fraction 
of the prize one paid for, but did not draw. Thus one 
could gamble away a few cents or a few dollars week- 
ly, according to one's pocket and one's patriotism. 
The lottery is a devilishly good thing for a country 
of ipipoverished people because it lightens taxation. 
To those who believe in gambling it represents the 
best and most desirable part of taxation since it takes 
only the money of those who pay voluntarily and 
cheerfully. It also collects quite a sum from visiting 
strangers, and did from us. I bought a large fraction 
of a ticket, as did most of the other strangers, and 
we all came near winning something. 

In our peregrinations about town, the doctor and I 
went through the cathedral, but saw nothing cheerful 
or pretty, although the altar and a representation of 
the nativity near it were bright with gilt and gaudy 
coloring. The walls everywhere abounded in mor- 



172 TO PANAMA 

tuary tablets, very cheerful and comforting things to 
the sick and the dead, but very uncomfortable re- 
minders to those of us who have the Greek enjoyment 
of living untainted with a fondness for the contempla- 
tion of dissolution. The church contains a tablet in- 
scribed to a physician. Dr. Joaquin Morro, which 
shows him to have been titled, according to the proper 
forms of law, for public services. This tablet, to- 
gether with the fact that the present president is a 
physician, shows that the doctors are better appreciat- 
ed in Panama than with us. It speaks well for the 
Panama doctors, or perhaps worse for those of some 
other countries. 

The exteriors of the churches were much more in- 
teresting to me, for they were picturesquely old, typi- 
cally Spanish in style, and most of them located among 
surroundings that were decidedly medieval and sug- 
gestive of strange customs and superstitious beliefs. 
As a rule, the ruins were roofless, imperfect shells of 
past glory and gloom, with perhaps a corner or small 
space or two boarded up for use as a storehouse or 
humble dwelling place. As we passed the ruins of 
the old Franciscan Church (a new, smaller one has 
been erected near by), I saw coming out from a board- 
ed space in the walls an exact counterfeit of the witch 
of Endor, as we see her in the tragedy "Macbeth," 
the final evolution of that species of old women that 
nourish themselves and their house-plants with tea and 
coffee. She was a sort of ambulating mummy; her 
face and head mere skull bones with yellow parch- 
ment drawn over them, and her body a concatenation 




X 
o 
P^ 
t^ 

(J 

o 
o 

1—1 

o 

Q 
O 

H 
O 



TOWN TOPICS 173 

of long bones held in line by some rags loosely drawn 
around them. As she came shuffling out from between 
the detached, fragmentary pillars she seemed appro- 
priately housed, a ruin within a ruin. I wondered 
how much rent she ought to have been paid to live 
there among the lizards. She added life to the dead 
pile, and undoubtedly added romance and interest by 
telling fortunes and frightening children. 

Across from these human and divine rooms were 
little dingy shops that looked like small square ma- 
sonry cells, relics of the days of the old church. Large 
double doors constituted almost their entire front, and 
were kept open for light and air. On account of their 
smallness, the almost complete emptiness of visible 
merchandise in most of them, the absence of cus- 
tomers, and the miserable appearance of the inmates, 
I asked the doctor if they were not disreputable 
places. He assured me that they were not, but that as 
it was already nine o'clock, the business of the day had 
been about all transacted. The owners dealt mostly in 
perishable provisions which were sold early in the 
morning, and there was but little left for them to do 
but lounge about until the next morning. Thus poverty 
and leisure and content often go together in the trop- 
ical zone, just as riches and leisure and discontent 
so often do in the temperate and intemperate zones. 

I noticed that most officials and business agents in 
Panama had office or business hours in the forenoon 
and afternoon, which were often marked on the doors 
or windows. This enabled them to enjoy their siestas 
and cigarets between business hours without being 



174 TO PANAMA 

disturbed, and also made it practicable for them to 
finish their work early in the day. The compara- 
tively small amount of work done by business men in 
the afternoon would lead one to suppose that but little 
was done, yet the best work is done in the early 
morning, at a time when Northern customers are not 
astir. In the tropics the early birds catch the worms. 
In the North the proverb speaks of only one early 
bird. 

I had given up hunting after baths. I could not 
hear of any tub baths, and had been frightened out 
of the notion of taking shower baths by a visiting 
Central American doctor who was waiting to attend 
the Medical Congress. He told me that next to his 
seventy-five cigar ets a day he enjoyed his daily cold 
shower bath at the house of a relative who was a 
druggist. The water that was used in the drug store 
to wash bottles and things with was run into a reser- 
voir under the floor and used for shower baths in the 
basement. As the Panama wells were drying up and 
plain drinking water was bringing a price, it occurred 
to me that to make shower baths pay, it might be nec- 
essary in bathing establishments, where the dishwater 
and waste water would, of course, be insufficient to 
supply shower baths for all of the customers, to col- 
lect also the waste water from the baths, pump or 
carry it up into the tank and use it over again. When 
the water became soapy enough from the multitude 
of baths, to look dirty, it could be allowed to flow 
away and a new series of baths be started on the same 
economical plan. Having a dread of beri-beri, dengue, 



TOWM TOPICS 175 

leprosy, elephantiasis, tropical ulcers, and other prev- 
alent ailments of more or less contagious nature which 
had their habitat in Panama, I did not allow myself to 
deviate from my previously formed opinion that cold 
private sponge baths were not only more cleansing 
than the public shower baths, but were more availa- 
ble, reliable, convenient, comfortable and manageable. 

After wandering about considerably among the 
streets and studying the business facilities, I came to 
the conclusion that Plaza Central was a good place 
for a residence district, but that, being at the wrong 
end of the town from the railroad station, it would 
soon be an out-of-the-way place for the agencies and 
business houses at present located in or near it. When 
the volume of business would become greater, the 
main thoroughfare would have to be made wider, or 
the business centered nearer to the station or trans- 
ferred to the mouth of the canal, for nothing ever stays 
but dirt and nothing ever lasts but time. 

Chief Engineer Wallace had, I believe, spoken of 
a plan, which carried to its extreme, would mean tear- 
ing down entire blocks of houses for long distances 
and enlarging the city area by building a sea wall out 
at the edge of the water at low tide, and filling in with 
the earth excavated from the canal. But Mr. Wallace 
was too modern and reconstructive. I suppose that 
a gradual change of the business center will be the 
most probable solution of the economic problem, leav- 
ing the old city as a residence district, for which it 
would be well located. A Chicago real estate dealer 
would make a beautiful suburb of it. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Past and the Present Panama 

A Visit Planned and Given Up — DiflEiculties — Buccaneer 
Henry Morgan and President Don Juan Perez de Guzman 
— Story of Morgan's Expedition against Panama — Pray- 
ers Versus Prowess — Starvation — Waiting Ambuscaders 
— Leather Soup — The Miraculous Feeding — Breakfast 
Food for Those Who Could not Walk — Making a New 
Road — Repulse of Don Juan's Cavalry — Repulse of the 
Cattle — Flanking Movement — Victory — Fire — Booty — 
The Filibusters Filibustered by Morgan — Great Britain 
and Captain Dampier — Chances for the Poet, Tourist, 
Artist, Antiquarian and Lover — Something New — Pana- 
ma has Changed Hands — But for Uncle Sam There'd 
be Something Doing in Panama. 

Doctor Echeverria and Senor Arango had planned 
a trip to the old city of Panama, the old-gold city, 
founded in 1518 by Don Pedro d'Aviia, sacked in 1673 
by Sir Henry Morgan, the buccaneer, and rebuilt on 
its present semi-peninsular site, where it is inaccessible 
to buccaneers and inconvenient for business. But it 
was a whole day's trip and there was no hotel to serve 
us with a dejeune a-la-fourchette and a siesta. Besides, 
we would have to find a guide to keep us from fall- 
ing into cellars and holes overgrown and concealed 
by such profusion of vegetation as only the tropics 
can produce in two hundred years. The doctor, rather 

176 



THE PAST AND PRESENT PANAMA 177 

than trust to a guide, thought it better to trust in God 
only and stay away, for it was a God-forsaken place. 

Two hundred years ago the citizens made their 
Creator ashamed of them by succumbing to a band of 
exhausted and half-starved buccaneers. Sir Henry 
Morgan and his men nearly perished of hunger in 
trying to cross the isthmus while Don Juan Perez de 
Guzman, president of Panama, was praying and eat- 
ing, and keeping tab on Morgan's progress and his 
own prayers, instead of pleasing God by killing pi- 
rates. God is not always pleased with mere praying. 
He favors doing, and sometimes fighting, as the fol- 
lowing narrative would seem to indicate. 

Montebello, the Colon of olden times, was situated 
near the mouth of the Chagres River. Sir Henry 
Morgan captured and sacked the town and sent word 
to Don Juan Perez de Guzman that he would call upon 
him soon in Panama. He was desirous of seeing the 
city where gold-dust blew about and blinded people, 
where the cathedral was crusted over with shells of 
pearl and filled with ornaments of silver, and the trees 
were hung and festooned with jewels to keep them off 
the grass. He wanted his share. The world owed him 
a living, etc. 

He made good his promise the next year (1670), 
thoroughly prepared for the work. He first captured 
Fort San Lorenzo that guarded or should have guard- 
ed the entrance of the river — and Don Juan P. de G., 
began to watch and pray. Don Juan considered him- 
self a better man than the pirate, and thought that 
the Lord was with him. But he did wrong to think. 
12 



178 TO PANAMA 

Meanwhile, Captain Morgan, with 1,200 men and 
provisions for one day, started merrily up the Chagres 
River. Food was too bulky to carry, and about all he 
had would be needed by those he left in charge of 
San Lorenzo, Besides, he did not go to eat; he went 
to fight. He took, however, five large scows laden 
with artillery and ammunition to offset the thinking 
and praying of Don Juan. God helps them who help 
themselves, and Morgan was prepared to help himself. 

Ambuscading parties showed themselves in the dis- 
tance occasionally, but they were to do the watching 
part of Don Juan's program and always retired be- 
fore Morgan got near enough to shoot and eat any 
of them. Instead of fighting and letting him capture 
their food, they retired and ate the food themselves, 
saying: "He who eats and runs away will live to 
run another day." 

Poor Morgan ! The food lasted one happy day. On 
the second day the 1,200 went hungry. On the third 
day they found the river obstructed by fallen trees. 
So a portion of the buccaneers carried the canoes over 
the obstacles while the rest cut their way through the 
dense vegetation beside the river. All of the artillery 
and ammunition that could not be thus transported 
had to be left. But Morgan kept right on to the sur- 
prise of the well-fed watchers. 

On the fourth day the filibusters found some dried 
hides at Torna Caballos, cut them into strips, made a 
stew and filled themselves. Such a meal ought to have 
staid by their stomachs for a week. At noon of the 
fifth day they found two bags of meal in the deserted 



'^'^^''^^m 

^fi 




RUINED TOWER OF OLD PANAMA 



THE PAST AND PRESENT PANAMA 179 

village of Barbacoas, and accomplished the miracle 
of feeding 1,200 men with two bags of meal. 

Some of the men were by this time so weak that 
they had to be carried into the boats, while many of 
those who could walk wanted to turn back. Yet they 
kept on, concluding that they might as well starve 
going forward as going backward. 

On the sixth day they found a plantation with a 
barn full of maize, for the ambuscaders had expected 
them to starve or turn back before reaching this plan- 
tation, and had not destroyed the maize. Nor did 
they defend it. Their business was to watch, and they 
could not watch and fight at the same time. The 1,200 
thus had their fill of breakfast food, and some to 
spare, and thus were revived and full of fight. They car- 
ried breakfast food to those in the canoes, who were 
too weak to walk, but not to eat. 

On the seventh day they crossed the river and 
reached Cruces, the head of navigation of the Chagres 
River, and beheld the city in flames. Here they found 
some wine, one sack of bread and some dogs and cats, 
which they ate and drank. Then they were taken 
sick; and Morgan laid it to the wine, which was a 
happy thought. 

On the eighth day they repulsed an Indian am- 
buscade near by, and lost ten men. Before they left, 
they were caught in a rainstorm, which was more seri- 
ous. As they had no houses for shelter, they put the 
ammunition in holes and cellars of the destroyed houses 
to keep it dry while they themselves passed the night 
taking a shower bath. 



i8o TO PANAMA 

On the ninth day they pushed on and reached El 
Cerro de los Filibusteros, and took their first look at 
the Pacific Ocean. Here they found droves of horses, 
mules, oxen, etc., and ate them. Spanish cavalry 
appeared often, but upon seeing the pirates, crossed 
themselves and withdrew, not wishing to be fired upon 
or touched by such a horde of unholy tramps. Where 
was Don Juan P. de G., P. of P., N. G. ? At prayers 
where good men love to be. He thought he had the 
faith that confoundeth the enemy, forgetting that 
there is no faith without deeds. In the meantime 
Morgan's men took a good sleep and recuperated. 

On the tenth day Morgan abandoned the regular road 
which the watchers and waiters had prepared to de- 
fend with cannon, and made a new road and appeared 
on a hill that was separated from the city by a plain. 
Here the Panamanians assembled 400 horse, 2,400 
foot soldiers and 2,000 head of cattle, males and fe- 
males, to resist the buccaneers. 

The cavalry ran out at Morgan, floundered about 
on the boggy plain and retired. The cattle then were 
shoved at him, but they were no braver than the cav- 
alry and were stampeded back into the Panamanian 
lines, causing great slaughter. The main body was 
then flanked by Morgan's left wing and promptly 
routed. Time, two hours. Casualties, 600 Panaman- 
ians left dead on the field, and many pirates sent to 
Satan. 

Don Juan N. G. then had the town set on fire, and 
it slowly burned down. Indeed, Don Juan played 
the Muscovite game from beginning to end. But 
Morgan was only fifty miles from his base, with which 



THE PAST AND PRESENT PANAMA i8i 

he had already established communication, and was 
not now in danger of starving or freezing. In fact, 
it is thought by some authorities that Morgan started 
the fire. Anyway the fire burned. Morgan looked 
down from the hill and said, "Let her burn." Don 
Juan looked up from the flames and said, "Let us 
pray." 

Then Morgan rode down and made his promised 
call. He and his fiendish followers staid in what was 
left of Panama for four months, plundering the sur- 
rounding country and ravishing the women. He held 
as many prominent persons as he could for ransom, 
and also tortured many to make them divulge the hid- 
ing places of valuables. He took what vessels he 
found in the port and scoured the South Sea for many 
miles. He captured a few stray ships, but the galleon 
upon which the greatest valuables had been placed 
escaped him. He then returned to Fort San Lorenzo 
with his booty and gave each of the surviving pirates 
$400, pretending to divide equally with them. The 
pirates accused him of keeping the greater part of the 
treasures and thought themselves poorly paid for the 
work they had done and the risks they had run. Those 
who were sent to Satan were the only ones whose re- 
wards were in keeping with the character of their 
work. 

Having failed to get a ransom for the castle of 
Chagres, he demolished some of its walls and set 
sail secretly for Jamaica, leaving the majority of his 
men behind, and almost as poor as before the expe- 
dition. God did not help Don Juan, but he hit the 
pirates hard. Few men would be willing to do so 



i82 TO PANAMA 

much dangerous work for so little pay. There cer- 
tainly were and are many honest occupations avail- 
able, even for the most ignorant men, that pay better 
in the end than trying to obtain by sword cuts or 
short cuts, what belongs to others. But everything 
has to be tried and exploited in this immature world, 
and Henry Morgan did pioneer work. As a reward 
for this, Henry was made a Sir and appointed Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of Jamaica, and the island has ever 
since been a victim of the four elements. These were 
golden days for buccaneers, for they were not only 
tolerated at Jamaica but were licensed by Great Brit- 
ain to rob and kill Spanish men and women, and to 
spend the money and sell the jewels at British ports. 

A paragraph from John Evelyn's diary tells the 
story : 

"1698, 6 Aug. — I dined with Mr. Pepys, where was 
Capt. Dampier, who had been a famous Buccaneer, 
had brought hither the painted Prince Job, and print- 
ed a relation of his very strange adventure, and his 
observations. He was now going abroad again by the 
King's encouragement, who furnished a ship of 290 
tons. He seemed a more modest man than one would 
imagine by the relation of the crew he has assorted 
with." 

Surely the tourist, the poet, the artist, the anti- 
quarian, and lover of the romantic past, need not go 
to Europe or Asia to find ruin and romance, dirt and 
dreaminess, the splendor of nature and the destruct- 
iveness of man, to find history, hallucination, inspira- 
tion and perspiration. 

Let him visit the solitary ruined tower at the site 



THE PAST AND PRESENT PANAMA 183 

of the old city of Panama and tumble into old vaults 
and ditches ; let him study the church ruins in the pres- 
ent city, and buy a few ; let him live in the dingy old 
Spanish houses and go about among the parti-colored 
inhabitants, instead of traveling in Europe among his 
own countrymen. Let him study the history, legends, 
superstitions, customs and language of the people 
and be satisfied. If not let him go to Yucatan and 
study the architecture and religion of the Aztecs, 
which are not modeled after guide books, and let him 
wander and dream and write and paint and see some- 
thing new under the sun, that really is under the sun. 
Europe and Asia are an old story. 

Panama has changed hands since the buccaneer 
period when the buccaneers did all of the fighting. 
Panamanians now have less money, fewer prayers 
and more fights. They have not a praying Don Juan 
for president — Don Juans should not pray. Their 
chief fault is that they believe in frequent changes of 
administration. But they have the courage of their 
convictions, and the army has always been ready to 
act upon them, pro or con. 

President Amador is a philosopher and believes 
that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, 
that the greatest preventive of fighting is to do away 
with the fighters. Hence the large standing army of 
the republic has been disbanded and their duties given 
over to the military policemen. Since then there has 
been a revolutionary stagnation, a slump in the revolu- 
tionary market, for which Uncle Sam is said to be re- 
sponsible. But for Uncle Sam there would have been 
something doing in Panama before this. 



CHAPTER XIII 

New Year's Day and the Sabanas 

Cathedral Bells — The Bawl after the Ball — Ringing in the 
New Year — Unique Chimes — The Musical Score — A 
Drive to the Sabanas — The Suburban Highway — Natives 
— Open Prairie — Senor Arango's Summer Residence — 
Great Variety of Flowers, Fruits and Foliage — Good 
Cattle Country — Fire-crackers — The Siesta Hour — A 
Quiet Funeral — Ho! for the Bull -fight. 

New Year's eve I was awakened at midnight by the 
ringing of the cathedral bells, which, being directly 
across the plaza and at about the same altitude as my 
open window, had a good chance at me. After a long 
time the noisy tolling ceased and I again dropped off 
to sleep. But I was hardly asleep when I was awak- 
ened by singing, that universal type of popular song 
that has its source in the saloon where good cheer is 
manufactured for holidays ; where holidays are howling 
days, and pay days are heydays. It was the bawl after 
the ball, and commanded attention. As New Year's day 
is a sort of Panama Fourth of July, both as to tempera- 
ment and temperature, the night watchmen considerate- 
ly allowed the singing to go on, although they probably 
kept the amateur musicians moving, and thus distribut- 
ed the noise impartially over the different parts of the 
town. At any rate, the noise died away in the distance 

184 



NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE SAB AN AS 185 

long enough for me to go asleep, when it came back 
and commanded attention again. 

At six-thirty in the morning when I was in the 
depths of my final heavy tenacious sleep, we had an- 
other musical entertainment, an official one this time. 
At the break of each New Year's day boys were hired 
to pound the bells in the cathedral towers, each boy 
having two or three bells to strike promiscuously and 
loudly, according to his strength and inclination. The 
rhythm as nearly as can be reproduced was as follows : 

Ting-aling, ting-tong, ting-ting, ating-tong, go-it- 
boys-aping-pong, right-along, sing-song, ring-wrong, 
hong-kong, gong-gong! 

This was kept up right-along until the boys who 
did the hitting must have been tired and lame-shoul- 
dered, when peace again reigned in the air. The per- 
formance was a relic of old Panama, a musical ruin. 
Tooting horns and blowing whistles would have been 
more cheerful and practical. 

As the lottery prizes were not to be drawn until 
noon, nor the bull-fight to be fought until four o'clock, 
I was very glad to take a drive with Doctor Echeve- 
rria and Seiior Arango to the latter's country resi- 
dence on the "sabanas" or "prairies." But for the 
almost continuous succession of courtesies shown me 
by the doctor and his friends, time would have hung 
heavily on my hands and I should have seen and un- 
derstood much less of the real life of the people. My 
acquaintances would have been mainly negro cabmen 
and American travelers, and my knowledge that of the 
near-sighted tourist who travels hundreds of miles in 



1 86 TO PANAMA 

order to get pointers on his guide book and commit 
a few well-known facts to memory, and recite them 
incorrectly. 

We drove through the town and out on the high- 
way, quite a long stretch of which had been paved 
by Seiior Arango himself. The road-bed was good, 
but like everything else in a country that had been 
having revolutions every two years, with access to the 
treasury, the road was sadly out of repair and must 
have been very bad during the muddy season. The 
horse didn't go fast enough to make the ruts and 
ridges objectionable, however, and the dust and heat 
were the only things to interfere with the enjoyment 
of our drive. Arrangements were being made to re- 
pave the highway, which was the only pleasure drive 
about Panama. This and the repaving of the Panama 
streets are undoubtedly doing something toward mak- 
ing life livable there. 

The highway and surrounding landscape were un- 
attractive for a short distance after passing the rail- 
way station. But a little farther on, the road was lined 
with huts in front of which native laborers who were 
spending New Year's day at home were gathered with 
their families; and it was interesting to study 
the crowd of mixed races of all shades from the 
white Spanish to the black negro, in which the Indian 
and negro blood seemed to play a predominant part. 
I was reminded of Midway Plaisance at the Chicago 
World's Fair and of the St. Louis Pike, minus the 
hallooing and calling. The low brows, narrow fore- 
heads, coarse features and dark skin gave them a sort 



NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE SAB ANAS 187 

of villainous appearance at first sight, but I noticed, 
upon looking at them iclosely, that they had a serious 
rather than sinister expression upon their faces. I also 
happened to remember that I had not been accosted 
by a beggar, either in Colon or Panama. Whether 
this is due to the fact that all men find work ; or to 
the scarcity of tourists to teach them to beg ; or to 
the small number and want of affluence of the mem- 
bers of the better classes, rendering the profession of 
begging unprofitable; or whether my observation was 
not accurate, I do not know. I suspect that what lit- 
tle it costs the poor to live, is easily earned, but not 
so easily begged. However, when the canal is fin- 
ished beggars will undoubtedly appear, among other 
innovations. 

After we had traversed about a mile of this subur- 
ban highway, the road led through a pleasant stretch 
of mildly rolling prairie-land with scattered woody 
areas. Occasionally we passed a farm-house without 
much farm and, here and there, a few grazing cattle. 
After about an hour of slow driving we came to two 
or three country residences and soon arrived at Sefior 
Arango's. 

It was an enclosure of five or six acres planted 
quite thickly with a great variety of trees, shrubbery 
and flowers; there seemed to be a dozen different 
kinds of fruit and flowering trees, many of them not 
indigenous to Panama. Flowers unfamiliar to me 
grew in great profusion upon bushes and small plants, 
and the ground was strewn with limes, mangoes, and 
other fruits whose names I knew not. Hence, a short 



1 88 TO PANAMA 

walk was a walk of great interest, and was especially 
pleasant because of the dense shade afforded by the 
thick foliage. The house was a story and a half high. 
One side of the lower floor was entirely made up of 
wide doors, allowing it to open up almost as com- 
pletely as if it had no wall on that side, and the 
porches were wide and covered by the projecting 
roof. The windows and large door spaces could be 
closed with lattice-work that kept out the sun, but 
not the air. The furniture was rustic but plentiful. 
A dark-skinned native lived apparently in one of the 
outhouses, but could not have had much to do except 
to watch the fruit grow, and eat it, for the place was 
evidently quite capable of taking the care of itself. 
The foliage was too thick for a shaven lawn to be 
cultivated under it, and there was no spring and au- 
tumn "taking up" and planting of delicate bulbs, or 
covering of roots in winter, etc. Once planted things 
required almost no care ; flowers and fruits matured 
and fell and began to grow again. After a pleasant 
hour spent in looking about, gathering nosegays, 
tasting fruits and cooling off in the rustic shade, we 
started back. 

Farther away from the town in the same direction 
Sefior Arango's father had a larger summer resi- 
dence, and still farther up the isthmus had a farm of 
several thousand acres with large droves of cattle. 
The sabanas are well adapted to cattle-raising and good 
beef is plentiful on the hoof. But the transportation fa- 
cilities are poor, for the country has neither highways 
nor railways. 



NEW YEAR'S DAY AND THE SAB AN AS 189 

As we rode back we found the boys in the city set- 
ting off fire-crackers and enjoying themselves as well 
as they could in a city with scarcely any street-space 
or yard-area. Otherwise the only activity noticea- 
ble was the passing of lottery ticket venders offering 
their goods for the drawing at noon. The hotel was 
more quiet than usual on New Year's day, for the 
father of the proprietors (two brothers) had died the 
day before and was to be buried in the afternoon. The 
barroom was closed and but few visitors were about 
except those who came to visit the chamber of death. 

After eleven o'clock breakfast we went to our 
rooms to take a short siesta, agreeing to meet again 
at half past three and go to the bull-fight. I lay down 
as on the previous day and began thinking of the 
mestizo bell boy. He did not appear, but my thoughts 
of him kept me awake until time to get up and go 
down-stairs. I had conquered him, but I could sleep no 
more. 

Descending the steps, I noticed that the funeral 
cortege was preparing to leave. The body had lain 
in state all day and had been visited by many people. 
Some services were apparently being held in the room, 
but I heard neither singing nor other music. A crowd 
of citizens in black clothes, and with silk hats that 
had evidently been caught in many a shower, was 
waiting in the corridor near the street door. When the 
body was brought down from the silent room, instead 
of being put into a hearse, it was borne through the 
streets by the pall-bearers, and followed by the rela- 
tives. All went on foot and I suppose that the burial 



IQO TO PANAMA 

was in some church in the neighborhood. It was an 
exceedingly silent and sensible funeral, but probably 
could not have been conducted so simply and quietly 
in a large city. I was told that the deceased was 
Jewish, a fact which may have given the peculiar 
character to the ceremony. At any rate, it seemed in 
good taste for a man thus to leave the world more qui- 
etly than he had entered it. 

Soon after the funeral procession had disappeared, 
I started with Doctor Echeverria for the courtyard 
of the International Club, where the bull-fight was 
to take place, prepared for the sensation of my life. 
I wished to see this relic of Spanish medievalism, yet 
dreaded somewhat the expected artistic display of 
killing qualifications. Two bulls were to be killed. 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Bull-Fight 

We arrived at the amphitheater a little before four 
o'clock and found everything cheerful and lively as 
befitted the occasion. Men and boys came in rapidly, 
took their seats, lighted cigarets and began to call out 
and joke with one another in a manner characteris- 
tic of the Spanish bull-fight audience. 

The arena was a square space located against the 
side wall of a brick house and enclosed on the other 
three sides by board fences about six feet high. Op- 
posite the brick wall and commanding a good view 
of it, a platform had been built for the common multi- 
tude. On another side of the square was a similar 
platform containing boxes for the alcalde (mayor) 
and aristocratic few, including ladies. On the fourth 
side a skeleton fence had been constructed apparently 
for the benefit of children who could see but could 
not pay; in our thrifty country the wall would have 
been built so as to prevent the children seeing through 
it. The doctor and I occupied chairs among the com- 
mon multitude and had the best location, for it com- 
manded a view of the boxes and of the two doors of the 
bull pen beneath. On each of the four sides of the arena, 
and about eighteen inches from the fence or wall, was 
built a strong wooden screen wide enough to conceal 

191 



192 TO PANAMA 

*»— 111 ' ■ I =5 

mm CORRIDA PARA EL DOMINGO. ENERO 19 DE 1905. 



Coo permiafr d« U ftutoiidad y si ol tiompo lo peioilto te lidiav^n^ ea el 

PATIO DEL CLUB INTERNAcIONAL. 

ciuco binros toros de la afaiuadt ganadoifa 
**Lft Jagijia" do propiedad del a^&or Fiaaeisco A. Mata, do los cuales seraQ 

DOS DE A'lUERTE FOR EL ESPADA "eHALEGO" 

1^ corrida Sfir4 pvesidida por el eefior Alcalde dot Distiito. 

TUa tamoua Spanish Bull fighter and Mutador " CHALECO " will kill Wo Bnll oa 
Guuday at 4 p. m. 

EiUmuoa to Bull Ring bolow the "Inteioaiional Club!*, 

Reserved. Seats Cor, sale ou Satuidry at the Walk-Over Shoe Store [American Bazaar]. 



-^ C5 l_j .Aw C3 F=i I L_ L_ A..|#-i- 

.^ Ca>aK.rslOE£P«ll_t— B1F=XC3^. t^ 

JOSE JIMESIKZ (al Cam-Andia. -PEDRO KAMiaEZ (a) Hoj'alifci. 

KAFAEL LOPEZ (a) Hestiio, — lEMAKL ITENDOZA (a) El PoUo. 

nOMBRE DE LOS TOROS: 

;.« £Z FATTTASMA DE LA ESQULYA. 2? EL AM4RQI/JSTA. 

S? ELJ^OriLERO. 4?ELB1STUEI. 

SP EL JtELAMPAOO. 



Palco con 4 entradas $ 10,00. Sillas de preferencia |l 2,00. 

Gradas „ 1,50 Entrada general „ 80. 

L»S eulrados se vonduiin dosde el SAbado hasta el Domiogo & las 12 m. en el Injoao y afa- 
mado Almac^a "BoUr Amorioano" y de las 12 haata las 4 p. m. en la Boleterla d« U Plasa. 

NOTA — La Banda do miiiiica tocaid \as piczas ni4s escogidas do su reporlorio modemo. 
La con kla cnipteari a las 4 p. m. Noee adojiiiri diuero en las puertos ni arrojar al ledofl- 
del objutos que inipidan la lidia. 



THE BULL-FIGHT 193 

four men standing side by side. Thus wherever the 
fighters might be they were always near a place of 
safety. 

The alcalde appeared promptly at four o'clock, and 
the National band played the National hymn. While 
the music was playing and the audience cheering, a 
gate opened and the gaudily dressed matador with 
his five butterfly banderilleros ran in and bowed be- 
fore the alcalde. They wore short scarlet cloaks, skin- 
tight, emerald knee-breeches and whitish stockings. 
The alcalde, who was dressed like a real man, was 
master of ceremonies to give the sign to begin, to 
give the sign to kill, and to give the sign to stop. The 
matador, or killer, threw his show cloak up to the 
box of the alcalde and the banderilleros, or dart-stick- 
ers, threw their show cloaks up over the railing at 
other places to be cared for by admiring spectators, 
for they used old cloaks to fight with. There were no 
picadores or mounted lancers. 

The music ceased, the alcalde nodded, the bugle- 
call sounded, the matador pirouetted and smiled, and 
the green and glittering banderilleros lined up beside 
the doors of the bull pen. One of the doors was 
thrown open and the audience waited in suspense. 
Suddenly out ran a well-formed animal into the light 
and looked around and blinked in astonishment. His 
name was ''El Fantasma de la Esquina" (The Phan- 
tom of the Corner). 

The five banderilleros began to flutter about in 
front of him and flaunt red cloaks at him. This he 
apparently resented, but did not seem to know which 
13 



194 " TO PANAMA 

cloak to hook at. Finally he charged at one, and then 
at another, but paid no attention to the grass-colored 
banderilleros. Before long one of the latter stepped 
up and gracefully stuck two ornamental barbed darts 
into his shoulders. This made the audience cheer and 
caused "Fantasma de la Esquina" to run about and 
jump and kick like a calf until the darts fell oflf. He 
was then pursued and teased again. But his moral 
nature was superior to that of his pursuers, for when 
they spanked him on one side he jumped around and 
presented the other. He only tried to defend himself 
against the cloaks, the only things whose evil inten- 
tions he seemed to suspect. 

"No sirve," cried the crowd. (No good.) 

And so thought the alcalde. The bull was unwor- 
thy of death. He didn't know a red cloak from a 
green handerillero. 

"To his pen, to his pen," they cried. The alcalde 
nodded, and the amiable bull was driven back, and 
was a phantasm of the past. 

Another bugle-call and another well-fed bull, "El 
Anarquista," ventured out. As he emerged from the 
door a couple of the barbed darts with gay ribbons 
on them were stuck into his shoulders. Like the 
"Fantasma" he bounded and kicked and stuck up and 
crooked his tail until the darts fell off, at which he 
seemed greatly pleased, and quieted down for a rest. 
However, the red cloaks kept bothering him, so he 
made a short charge at one of them and then ran to 
one side out of their way. But the cloaks got after 
him like mosquitoes, so he charged another one and 



THE BULL-FIGHT 195 

then trotted about aimlessly, as if reasoning that to 
keep running was the best way to keep from being 
stung. A couple of darts were again hooked into his 
shoulders, making him show his capers again until 
they were shaken off. "El Anarquista" was also sen- 
tenced to live and was shooed back to his pen. There 
was nothing in his name. 

The third bull, "El Novillero," the Greenhorn of 
the Arena, received a dart in his shoulders as he came 
out, and bounded to the center of the arena as if 
looking for trouble. He kicked at the sky and snort- 
ed at the ground and charged vigorously at the red 
cloaks, and sent handerilleros scurrying behind the 
screens and one of them over the back fence. He also 
charged one of the screens, producing an exhilarating, 
reverberating sound as his horns struck it, and win- 
ning the applause of the populace. This full charge 
upon the screen was by far the most exciting thing 
that had happened. 

After receiving some more darts in his shoulders 
he charged again and ran straight after one of the 
handerilleros who, however, outran him and thus 
reached the screen and was safe. This is the first time 
any of the bulls had really gone after a man. He was 
the first one whose intelligence was anything like a 
match for that of his antagonists. But even 
this bull did not want to hurt any one. His attitude 
was, ''Let me alone or I'll hook you. Keep your dis- 
tance or I'll chase you." 

To me this fellow seemed, taking him for all in all, 
brave enough to die for the benefit of Panamaniac 



196 TO PANAMA 

sport, but the alcalde thought not and the handeril- 
leros tried to drive him back. But he would not go. 
He was afraid to turn his short tail toward them 
long enough to go through the door for fear they 
would stick a pin into him. So, after many 
futile efforts to drive him they let all of the 
other bulls into the arena, "El Fantasma," "El Anar- 
qiiistOy" "El Bisturi" (Lancet) and "El Relampago" 
(Lightning). "El Novillero," the cautious, got into 
the midst of them and they were all driven back into 
the pen as a herd. It was perfectly disenchanting. 

Another bugle call for another bull. After some hesi- 
tation "El Bisturi" ran out and received two darts, but 
he jumped and kicked cow-fashion until he finally also 
shook them off. Either hides were tough that day or 
barbs were dull, for not a dart had remained sticking. 
Then the routine teasing began. He shook his horns at 
the cloaks and charged them once or twice ; then ran 
away and was kept running all over the arena, fright- 
ened and confused at the number of cloaks waving at 
him from all sides. "El Bisturi" was the greatest run- 
ner of them all. 

"No sirve, no sirve" shouted the gods. "De nos 
nuestra plata." (Give us our money.) 

The alcalde smiled, gave the usual signal and "El 
Bisturi" was driven back to his fodder. 

A fifth bugle-call and out came "El Rclampago" 
(The Lightning). He kicked at the clouds, shook 
off the darts, charged the cloaks, then stopped and 
shook his horns at them, and after having had his lit- 
tle sport, stood still and wondered what it was all 



THE BULL-FIGHT 197 

about anyway. They teased him, but he lost interest 
in the game, although by means of head shakes, bluffs 
and short charges he chased two men behind the 
screens. 

One of the banderilleros wished to show off and 
tried to practice a trick of the trade. When the bull 
made a short charge at his cloak the trickster jerked 
up the cloak and whirled around so as to present his 
unprotected back to the horns of the bull. He should 
have waited until the bull had completed his charge 
at the cloak and he would have been safe, but he 
chose the time badly and "El Relanipago ran into 
him. But, the cloak having disappeared, the bull 
raised his head and merely hit the fellow inadvertently 
on the shoulders with his nose, instead of the other 
place with his horns, and thus raised a laugh instead 
of lifting the man. ''El Relampago" was a humorist 
and a bluffer ; but there was no sting to his satire. He 
was apparently more afraid of injuring what he con- 
sidered to be one of his masters, than the banderillero 
was of being hurt by him. He might, instead of 
stopping like a horse caught by the bridle, have low- 
ered his powerful head again and given the fellow 
a boost to a warmer place than Panama. 

"No sirve. Otro, otro," cried the crowd. (No good. 
Another, another.) 

But "El Relampago" was the last of the supply of 
gladiatorial beef, so the alcalde signaled to have it 
killed. 

"Es un asesinado. No la asesinar." (It's an assas- 
sination. Do not assassinate him), yelled the crowd. 



198 TO PANAMA 

They wanted blood, but they wanted fighting blood, 
not slaughter-house gore. 

But the smiling matador stood before the box of the 
alcalde with both hands raised to receive the official 
nod. The alcalde nodded, partly from drowsiness, 
whereupon the matador turned and danced off quick- 
ly, like a martinette, toward the door and received his 
sword. 

The sword was a beautiful one, long and slender, 
and so bright that it was only visible in the restless 
hand of the bull-fighter by its flashing. He ran nim- 
bly toward his victim, flourishing the weapon grace- 
fully and ostentatiously, and began confusing the 
tired, ill-conditioned and unsuspecting bull by swing- 
ing a cloak before his eyes. The bull did not move, 
except slightly with his head as he was being hyp- 
notized. Suddenly there was a flash, and the man 
stabbed the animal who had been so anxious not to 
injure him. The deed was done so quickly that Doc- 
tor Echeverria, whose sympathies were probably 
slowing down his mental action, did not see it done. 

The bull stood still for a moment, then turned and 
ran to the center of the arena and, as it happened, 
faced the alcalde who had ordered his death, and was 
thus doing his best. He stopped still, lowered his 
head, began to breathe heavily and lolled out his 
tongue. He showed great distress and was evidently 
bleeding internally. He stood that way for a few mo- 
ments, then walked to the corner near his pen and 
slowly lay down with his head drooping until his 
nose nearly touched the ground. He evidently did 



THE BULL-FIGHT 199 

not understand how this trouble and suffering had 
come to him. 

The matador in the meantime strutted proudly in 
front of the seats with hands up, smiling and bowing 
for compliments that were not showered upon him. 

Two negro menials went behind the dying bull to 
put on the finishing touches. The bull lifted up his 
head and turned it toward them, but not with his 
former half-defiant, half-playful expression. It was 
an expression of half alarm and half entreaty, and 
said as plainly, and much more forcibly, than words 
could have done, "Why did you hurt me? Don't 
come at me again. I'm sick. I did nothing to any of 
you." And he lowered his head again, and laid it down 
on the ground, resigned to die, caring no longer what 
they did. 

"Asesinado," cried the crowd. (Assassinated.) 

"Asesinado," re-echoed in every breast. 

^^De nos nuestra plata, Senor Alcalde, de nos nues- 
tra plata." (Give us our money.) 

One of the menials got behind the prostrate bull's 
head and began sticking a narrow dagger into the 
back of his neck, trying to find and sever the spinal 
cord. After three or four stabs the object was ac- 
complished, for the bull's body relaxed with sudden 
paralysis. Thereupon the negro cut the paralyzed 
animal's throat wide open, and blood poured out as 
from a street hydrant. His limbs twitched a little 
and he relaxed in death — and no one seemed to enjoy 
it. It was much less satisfactory than a packing-house 
exhibition. 



200 TO PANAMA 

Then they brought in two little mules in traces, 
hooked a rope around the dead animal's horns and 
tried to drag him out. The mules started and dragged 
him to the center of the arena, with his nose digging 
deep into the dirt so as to impede their progress. At 
the center the mules stopped and gave up the task, 
upon which two negroes got in front and pulled at 
their heads, while another negro whipped them vig- 
orously from behind. They started up, took a few 
more steps forward and gave it up again. 

"Whip the front mules," cried one of the gods, re- 
ferring to the negroes who were pulling the mules — 
and the gods laughed. 

Finally, by pulling and pushing, the negroes suc- 
ceeded in getting the dead bull out, one taking hold 
of the tail and bending it over its back to pull with. 

Only one bull had been killed and our desire for 
gore was supposed to be incomplete. Our expecta- 
tions were not realized. As no horses were to be 
gored we did not get much for our money, and had 
a right to see another bull killed as per program. In 
Spain a man rides a blindfolded horse in front of the 
bull and prods him in the forehead, until he disem- 
bowels the horse. So another animal was admitted, 
undoubtedly one of the first ones who had fought. 
He looked like "El Anarquista" and acted like him, 
for he could not be made to show fight — he had 
learned that there was nothing in it for him except 
a title that was not worth dying for. Hence he was 
ignominiously driven back, like a tame bossie cow. 

Then they let in one whose bloody shoulders bore 



THE BULL-FIGHT 201 

evidence of the previous encounter with darts and 
banderilleros. He charged a little, but only in self- 
defense. This was the third of those who had been 
introduced, "El Novillero," the Greenhorn of the Are- 
na, the only one who had shown any spirit. But that 
was out of him now and he was as unwilling to do any 
harm to his masters as the others had been. 

The alcalde made a signal to stop the farce and the 
show collapsed. Some got up to go and some sat 
still; but no one paid any attention to the bull, who 
stood where he had been left and contemplated the 
moving crowd with wonder and uncertainty. How- 
ever, he seemed quite contented to be a spectator. 

The doctor and I sat silently in our seats, not be- 
ing sufficient!}^ excited either to say or do anything, 
when unexpectedly the most interesting part of the 
entertainment commenced. A boy nine or ten years 
old crept over the low fence and sneaked toward the 
screen in front of the brick wall near which the bull 
stood, and ran behind it. Then he stepped forth, 
held out his hand and when the bull looked at him 
jumped back. Immediately two other boys who were 
on the fence climbed down and sneaked behind the 
screen, and also tried to tease the bull, who now placed 
himself on the defensive. More boys jumped down 
into the arena and began to leap about near the 
screens and whistle and halloa at the astonished "No- 
villero." As there were now too many little fellows 
in the enclosure to find room behind the screens, I 
began to fear for their safety. The noise and antics, 
however, of so many little devils seemed to confuse 



202 TO PANAMA 

the dumb gladiator, and he merely remained on the 
defensive, making feints at those who ventured near 
him. 

Bye and bye a boy about fifteen years of age pro- 
cured one of the red cloaks, ran up to the bull and 
shook it in his face, while he himself stood at one side 
of it. The bull, who was not afraid of cloaks, made 
a sort of short bluff charge at it and as he passed the 
boy almost grazed him, for he was so near the brick 
wall that there was hardly space for sidestepping. 
The boy repeated the maneuver and so did the bull, 
who was becoming trained to the cloak charging ex- 
hibition and acquitted himself like a trained dog. This 
greatly amused the spectators who knew what a sim- 
ple matter it was to let a bull charge at a cloak with 
closed eyes, for they always close their eyes just 
before striking the object of attack. This closing of 
the eyes is what gives the banderilleros the oppor- 
tunity of performing apparently perilous antics right 
in the path of a bull, who also completes his charge 
when he strikes the cloak, particularly if he considers 
himself merely on the defensive, as most of them do. 

There were now about forty little boys in the arena, 
and when the boy with the cloak got tired the whole 
crowd of children rushed toward the animal, who 
backed up against the wall and stood at bay with 
head down. Now for some broken bones, I thought. 

Little by little the crowd grew bolder and came 
quite close to him. Giving plenty of warning, he 
made a short, slow charge at them and sent them 
scattering and hooting and yelling in all directions. 



THE BULL-FIGHT ' 203 

A cow would have hooked them. After a couple of 
similar bluffs he started on a trot after them, stopped 
in the middle of the arena, then went back to the wall 
and again assumed a restful defensive attitude. He 
was a good bull to have about children. Evidently 
he did not wish to injure any one, and I think that 
but for the recollection of the severe treatment he 
had received from the banderilleros previously, he 
would have entered into the spirit of the game with 
the boys and would have enjoyed it. And yet this 
animal had been brought in to be pricked with barbed 
darts, teased with red cloaks, stabbed with a sword, 
to have his spine transfixed and his throat cut — rough 
treatment for an animal who refused to harm the 
children. We left the children playing with him. 

Doctor Echeverria had not discussed the bull farce 
at the time, nor did he do so on the way back to the 
hotel, but while we were at dinner he suddenly said 
in his gentle, deliberate way: 

"Do you know, doctor, there are some things we 
see in our lives that we can never forget, things that 
mark off periods in our lives? I feel that this bull- 
fight is one of those things." 

"You are right," I said, trying to cheer him. "It 
was neither a &M//-fight nor a bully fight, it was mere- 
ly a fight between bulls and bullies." 

In the evening the regular Sunday open-air con- 
cert was given in the Parque de la Catedral, in front 
of Hotel Central. We did not go out and prome- 
nade, for with the morning excursion to the sabanas 
to tire us, the funeral to depress us, the bull-fight to 



204 TO PANAMA 

haunt us, and our failure to win at the lottery to 
shame us, we were content to retire early and listen 
to the music and mosquitoes through the bars. 

I lay listening to the well-played music, sometimes 
loud and martial as for soldiers marching to battle, 
at other times rhythmic and sensuous as for dancing, 
or soft and sentimental as for love-making, until I 
fell asleep to dream. I dreamed of a place where 
there was no killing for sport, no premature dying from 
disease, no gambling with lottery tickets, no 
scale of unearned wages, no rivalry for luxury and 
no system of imposition upon the weak by the crafty. 
Such a world there is, but it is in the region of the 
spirit or in the land of dreams, not in Panama nor in 
Pan-America. 



PART II 

The Pan-American 
Medical Congress 



Part II 



CHAPTER I 

The Opening of the Congress 

Preparations for the Congress — Secretary Calvo — President 
Icaza's Hospitality — Arrival of the Western Contingent — 
Doctors and Drink — Reception by Doctor Amador, 
President of Panama — The Palacio de Gobierno — Former 
Presidents and Governors — Mrs. Amador — The President 
— Revolutions and Their Origin — Opening Exercises 
of the Congress — Eastern Contingent Absent — The 
$25,000 Barrel — Speeches by Mr. Wallace, Mr. Robinson, 
Doctor Gorgas, and Music by the Band — The Panama 
Railway — Poetry and Prophecy by Punch. 

On Monday, January 2nd, the preparations for the 
Pan-American Medical Congress began in earnest. Dr. 
Jose E. Calvo, the secretary, with a smile that never 
came off, worked like a little Hercules for the con- 
gress that almost never came off. Upon his shoulders 
rested the responsibility of making preparations for 
the scientific program, and although he was the whole 
thing, so to speak, he was not even hustling and im- 
patient in his demeanor. His affability was so great 
and his manners so quiet that he really seemed meek, 

207 



2o8 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

as all high officials should. High officials so often for- 
get that they are servants. 

The president of the congress, Dr. Julio Icaza, had 
no time to smile. In preparing for the social part of 
the program he did a prodigious amount of work that 
will never be appreciated by those who went to be 
entertained, and found it so easy. Early in the after- 
noon he arrived from Colon with our Western con- 
tingent. He and Seiior Obarrio, the treasurer of the 
Republic of Panama, who had $25,000 to devote to 
the entertainment of the Medical Congress, had gone 
to receive as befitted the profession of Panama to re- 
ceive, and the profession of the republic that had done 
so much for Panama to be received. The treasurer 
expressed the visitors through from Colon to Panama 
free of charge and I am sure that President Icaza 
gave them the South American pledge of hospitality ; 
for, from first to last, he omitted no essential and neg- 
lected no individual. In the evening he invited Doc- 
tor Echeverria and me into the barroom and main- 
tained the elevated dignity of his office, his congress 
and his country by toasting the United States over a 
bottle of champagne. 

Champagne is the only appropriate drink for an 
international toast. It meets the requirements of 
courtly etiquette and social aristocracy. It has the 
favor and patronage of kings and connoisseurs, and 
is adopted and bruited by the nobility abroad and the 
capitalists at home. It is the royal nectar, the spar- 
kling sip, the golden prod of pampered palates, the 
coveted badge of aping mediocrity, the ostentatious 



THE OPENING OF THE CONGRESS 209 

smack of upstart opulence. Therefore, let those who 
can afford aristocratic dissipation and affect the dis- 
tinction of highborn headaches drink it and feel proud 
and pampered. But those who are less ambitious can 
find choicer bouquets in cheaper wines. 

Among the feted and dead-headed travelers I rec- 
ognized Dr. N. Senn, Sr., Dr. Lucy Waite, Dr. and 
Mrs. D. R. Brower, and Drs. Jacob Frank, H. P. 
Newman, A. B. Hale and C. G. Wheeler, all of Chi- 
cago ; Dr. Chas. W. Hughes of St. Louis ; Dr. and 
Mrs. George W. Crile of Cleveland; Dr. Morrow of 
San Francisco; Dr. and Mrs. Palmer of Janesville, 
Wis. ; Dr. and Mrs. Edgar P. Cooke of Mendota, 111. ; 
and Dr. and Mrs. Wilcox of Michigan City, Ind. 

Things immediately became lively about the hotel 
corridor and barroom. A new world greeted the 
pilgrims from the wild West and frigid North, and 
they were pleased with it. Extremes and opposites 
met, and there was ebullition. 

Colonel Gorgas, Captain Carter, Major La Garde 
and other U. S. officers and officials called at the hotel 
during the evening, and also spent considerable time 
during the days that followed in lounging around try- 
ing to make us feel at home and adding much to the 
goodfellowship of our visit. But none of these gen- 
tlemen drank promiscuous toasts. In fact, I soon 
learned that the American officers on duty, as well as 
the Panama physicians, drank but little if any liquor, 
thus proving the rule that *Tn Panama one should do 
as the Panamanians do," by constituting exceptions. 
Since hard drinking and hard working are both con- 

14 



2IO THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

sidered to be injurious habits in the tropics, I won- 
dered at the popularity of the barroom, and conclud- 
ed that the hard drinkers compromised with their 
conscience by observing the tropical rules of health 
concerning hard working. The abstemiousness of 
the doctors was perhaps on the other hand due to the 
fact that they indulged in hard work. This abstemi- 
ousness was greatly to their credit, since from their 
irregular and strenuous modes of life, doctors, both 
in and out of the tropics, are apt to become addicted 
to the use of sedatives and stimulants. I have noticed 
with regret that in the United States the red nose 
and mottled cheek is occasionally seen among elder- 
ly physicians, indicating that many resorts had been 
had to the fancied comfort, the second-hand cheer and 
spurious stimulation of alcoholics. Statistics assert 
that three fourths of the French morphine users are 
physicians. A knowledge of the effects of evil does 
not always act as a preventive. 

At 2 P. M. Tuesday we registered as members of 
the congress and at 4 P. M. attended a reception ten- 
dered us by Doctor Amador, president of the Repub- 
lic of Panama, at the Palacio de Gobierno, the Panama 
White House, which is painted blue. The second or 
upper floor was occupied by him as a residence, and 
the lower floor by the treasury department of the state 
on one side and the soldier-police on the other. The 
palace was a rectangular, two-story corner one cover- 
ing about fifty by seventy-five feet, built solidly 
against the adjoining buildings. The entrance led 
into a tiled patio or court of about twenty-five by thirty 



THE OPENING OF THE CONGRESS 211 

feet, at the rear end of which a broad stairway led up to 
the balcony. The balcony extended all around the 
court, and served as an outdoor hall or passageway 
to the rooms. There was no inner hall, but the rooms 
were connected by doors so that one could pass from 
one to the other, the same as is usually the case in 
palaces and art galleries. In fact, the building served 
both as palace and art gallery, for around the wall of 
the rectangular reception-room, hung high up near 
the ceiling in oval frames, were bust portraits in oil of 
all of the presidents and governors of Panama from 
about the year 1855 down to date, with their names and 
the dates of their terms of office printed under them. 
There were pictures of twenty-five presidents and 
thirteen governors, if my memory does not deceive 
me. The first president served about three months, 
the second one about thirteen, and the others from a 
few months to two years — only two or three of them 
longer than that. How they found so many great 
men in so small a country, willing to give up so short 
a time from their private business, and risk the lives 
of their friends in a tit-for-tat with the previous gov- 
ernment is a matter of no small wonder. Some of 
them were patriots and some were politicians, or rev- 
olutionists. Revolution is the Spanish for election. 
In Spanish America the president holds office until 
the next revolution. If the revolution is unsuccessful 
he is elected for another term. The governors, of 
course, ruled longer than the presidents for they were 
appointed and supported by the Colombian govern- 
ment, which, in turn, was for a long time supported 



212 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

largely by Panama and de Lesseps. President Ama- 
dor had previously served a term as governor, and 
probably would not have been selected as president 
had he not been a good governor. He was a survival 
of the fittest. 

President and Mrs. Amador received us in a very 
gracious and informal manner, and as there were but 
few present each of us had an opportunity of convers- 
ing freely with them. All conversed with Mrs. Ama- 
dor, but only two of us understood or made ourselves 
understood, for she did not understand and speak En- 
glish as her husband did. However, she was 
lively and interesting for all that, and was such a good 
listener that she kept her guests talking English in 
their very best style, most of them supposing that 
they were making a favorable impression. She was 
a handsome woman of medium height and figure, and 
much younger and more vigorous looking than her 
husband, who began to practice medicine about fifty 
years ago and therefore must have been much older 
than he appeared. He was tall, slim and serious look- 
ing. He seemed delicate because slim and quiet, but 
I believe the slender and delicate looking men work 
and last better in the tropics than those who carry 
superfluous flesh which, notwithstanding the pride 
taken in it by its possessors, is a sign of physical de- 
terioration. He had a dignified and what might be 
called a matter-of-fact bearing, with nothing suggest- 
ive of Spanish or French formality. His appearance 
was that of a cultured American of quiet tempera- 
ment who was content to pass unnoticed in a crowd. 



THE OPENING OF THE CONGRESS 213 

He was cordial although undemonstrative in his treat- 
ment of us, and was anxious to do everything in his 
power to please us and, in fact, did everything he could 
except get up a revolution for our entertainment. 
This he utterly refused to do, although it could have 
been very easily managed — anybody could have started 
a revolution. But he was obstinate. 

The modus operandi of a revolution was about as 
follows : Whenever a popular man in one of the out- 
lying districts got tired of work he would throw down 
the ploughshare and say to his numerous friends, 
"Come, boys, let's go and tell the president what to do 
next. If he doesn't want to do it next, why we'll do it. 
If those little blue-coats in the patio don't tumble over 
to our side, we'll knock them over, and run the govern- 
ment on business and patriotic principles, and put the 
idle money of the treasury in circulation." 

This was the spirit of revolutions in Panama, this 
democratic spirit that gave any one who had friends 
the opportunity at any time to serve them by becom- 
ing their president. Every man had a right to be the 
president except the man who was. Instead of coun- 
tenancing this spirit by starting new revolutions for 
Uncle Sam to quell, the president-doctor offered us 
the champagne of good-fellowship and the cigaret of 
peace. This is Uncle Sam's kind of revolution. It 
is the new brand. The old kind is going out. U. S. 
is no longer a colonel or a judge; he is a peacemaker. 

With U. S. out of the way, however, the Panaman- 
ians are great fighters. They are not a bit afraid of 
killing one another, and the man who is afraid of 



214 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

death and bombs had better not run counter to them 
when they are out for poHtical sport. But if we (U. 
S.) carry out our pecuHar ideas in Panama and estab- 
hsh permanent peace there, what will become of the 
warriors and the warlike nation? Will they, and it, 
not become extinct through change of environment? 
Will not peace kill more in the end than war? When 
Panama has become U.S.-ified will not the Panaman- 
ians become ossified and inert, and those of U. S. who 
take their places debilitate and degenerate from dig- 
ging in canal dirt? Are there not blights as well as 
blessings of peace? Can the Anglo-Saxons perma- 
nently conquer the tropics? Not until they grow 
black in the face. 

In the evening the opening exercises of the congress 
were held in the theater. We put on our swallowtails 
and chapeau-claques and sauntered around the cor- 
ner to the gaily decorated and illuminated theater 
building to which the band lured us, and where the 
dignitaries of the republic and Canal Zone awaited us. 
And they gave us a welcome commensurate with their 
dignity and the importance of the aims of the con- 
gress. Nothing was lacking but numbers to render 
the event one of historical grandeur. However, if 
the Congresistas were not numerous, a large audi- 
ence rendered the defect unnoticeable. 

The Eastern contingent was still on the ocean and 
was missing it all. But they were good sailors and 
didn't mind it. They were cracking jokes and break- 
ing bottles over their misfortune, and expecting to 
get in on the last day, just in time for a "home run." 



THE OPENING OF THE CONGRESS 215 

Easterners are rich. They have plenty of opportuni- 
ties at home to wear swallowtails and listen to music 
and drink champagne. But we poor Westerners were 
having the time of our lives. We and a few Central 
Americans were having it all. We and the $25,000 bar- 
rel were there. Twenty-five of us were to be enter- 
tained for four days with it ; $250 a day each. Pana- 
ma, the poorest of republics, is the most hospitable of 
nations. Her liberality is without precedent. I thought 
of the Persian proverb, "It does not thunder until the 
lightning has struck." The lightning had struck. We 
were waiting for the thunder. 

On the stage were President Amador, President 
Icaza, Secretary Calvo, Chief Engineer Wallace, Mr. 
Robinson, Colonel Gorgas, Major La Garde, Captain 
Carter and the members of the congress. 

President Amador opened the congress by welcom- 
ing us in the name of the Republic of Panama. 

The Panama band of thirty pieces then played the 
National air. 

Mr. Wallace gave a resume of the work accom- 
plished on the canal. So far it had been necessarily 
preparatory and consisted mainly of an examination 
and study of the French work and plans, the clearing 
away of debris, repair of the old machinery, an exam- 
ination of the ground, calculation of difficulties, es- 
timation of the working capacity of new machinery, 
and the determination of the cost and time required to 
build a canal at sea level, and one with locks. The ex- 
cavation of the 100,000,000 cubic feet of dirt and 
stone at the Culebra cut, and its transportation ten 



2i6 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

miles away where floods could not bring it back, 
was the dominant feature of the work. It would 
take nearly three times as long to accomplish this 
as to construct the other portions of the canal. 
Mr. Wallace thought that with the improved machin- 
ery of to-day the construction of a sea-level canal was 
feasible. However, a canal with locks could be con- 
structed in a much shorter time and could be deepened 
while being used, and the sea-level canal could be left 
as a problem for the next century. This last sugges- 
tion about the next century, however, was not made 
by Mr. Wallace. It is my bright idea. 

When the speaker sat down the Panama band again 
filled the building with stirring strains of music, rest- 
ing our minds and preparing us for the appreciation 
of the other addresses. As at the opening of the 
third Pan-American Medical Congress at Havana 
three years before, music constituted a liberal part of 
the program and relieved it of the monotony of con- 
tinuous speech-making. 

Then Mr. Robinson, who had lived in Panama forty 
years, and during quite a large part of that time had 
witnessed about a revolution a year, spoke of the prim- 
itive conditions before the railroad was built. It was 
built under great difficulties and with scarcely any 
money. It was opened Jan. 31, 1855, and had earned 
$4,000,000 a year, a pretty good percentage on scarce- 
ly anything. Its opening constituted the greatest revo- 
lution the country had ever experienced. 

Apropos of this railroad, Ex-Senator Bill Nye is 
reported in the Chicago Daily News of April 20, 1905, 



THE OPENING OF THE CONGRESS 217 

to have said, "That Panama railway is a cinch. They 
have one train, which they run over and back daily, 
and a few cars, the daily operating expense footing 
up to $39, and one day's income that I was down 
there, for freight and passengers, was $9,000. It beats 
any railroad on the globe for profit, according to its 
equipment and trackage." The inference is that about 
$9,000 was earned daily with a daily outlay of about 
$39 and an original investment of almost nothing. If 
the word Panama means good fishing, this story is 
appropriately told about Panama. Nevertheless the 
railroad stock must be good, and Uncle Sam owns 
the stock. 

Mr. Robinson stated that the canal had been first 
planned by an American, but had proved a failure be- 
fore it was begun. It was then planned by the French 
and had proved a failure after it was begun. The 
first American attempt showed how not to begin it, 
the French attempt showed how not to do it, and it 
was now for the Americans to show how not to fail. 

Mons. de Lesseps was an honest man, but was not 
a practical engineer. He was getting old at the time 
he undertook the work, and was in the hands of his 
friends. His friends, however, couldn't do the work, 
so they did him ; they wouldn't work anyway, so they 
worked him every way. But the world still thinks 
well of him. He was too good for the world about 
him. 

That the so-called Yankee is the man to build the 
canal is proved by a poem printed over fifty years ago 



2 1 8 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

in the London Punch (1851), of which the following 
is a quotation : 

O'er Panama there was a scheme 

Long talked of to pursue a 
Short route — which many thought a dream 

By Lake Nicaragua. 
John Bull discussed the plan on foot, 

With slow irresolution, 
While Yankee Doodle went and put 

It into execution. 

Mr. Robinson claimed that although yellow fever 
had always existed in Panama it had not been epi- 
demic for over fifty years, and the band played long 
and loud. 

Colonel Gorgas then spoke of the sanitary prob- 
lems, the most important of which was the killing of 
a female mosquito. Her death was necessary for the 
success of the undertaking. This mosquito, whose 
official name is Stegomyia Fasciata, a second Agrip- 
pina, was suspected of infecting people with yellow 
fever twenty years ago by Dr. Carlos J. Finley. Now 
she is considered to be the sole cause. It will be diffi- 
cult to dislodge her from the twenty odd villages with 
12,000 inhabitants scattered over a strip of territory 
nearly fifty miles long by ten wide. But by means of 
drainage of most of the surface water, the covering 
of the rest with oil and screens, the protection of the 
houses and beds by window screens and mosquito bars 
and the isolation of all new cases, she will not only 
be drouthed out, but will not be able to get at any dis- 



THE OPENING OF THE CONGRESS 219 

eased or disused individuals to obtain fresh supplies 
of the poison. 

The sanitary work had hardly been begun, yet al- 
ready the conditions were very much better than they 
had ever been before. Uncle Sam is accomplishing 
great things in the world through his reforms, not 
only in politics but also in hygiene. It is the only way 
to conquer the tropics. 

Secretary Calvo made a few graceful remarks ex- 
tending the hospitality of the city to the members. He 
announced that the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, 
Honduras, Costa Rica, San Domingo, Cuba and Peru 
had sent delegates. 

President Amador then arose as a sign that the ex- 
ercises were over, and we returned to the hotel to 
become better acquainted with each other. Afterward 
we went up to our mosquito bars, enthusiastic over 
the morrow's program of scientific work as well as 
the thunder that was to come, and keep on coming. 



CHAPTER II 

Breakfast and Dinner on the Same Day 

Lively Coffee — Eleven O'clock Breakfast on the Prairies — 
Appetizers Wasted — Music by the Band — The National 
Hymn and Its Composer — Laying up for a Rainy 
Season — The Banquet at Hotel Centrdl — Menu Trans- 
lated — Musical Program — Speeches by Experts; One 
out of Place and One out of Sight — Mixing Wines — 
Nightcaps at the Club — Too much Dining. 

On Wednesday we awoke fully fledged members of 
the $25,000 Pan-American Medical Congress, wonder- 
ing if from a scientific and assimilative point of view 
we should be able to accomplish all that the occasion 
called for. 

It was lively at coffee. Several doctresses and doc- 
tors' wives were present and they, as well as some of 
the doctors who had always been accustomed to eat- 
ing in the morning, had to be instructed in the art of 
early fasting ; and the poor waiters had to be protect- 
ed from them. After finding out that nothing but 
unsweetened oranges, water rolls and bitter coffee 
with milk were allowed, one lady wanted water in 
her coffee, another wanted cream, another could not 
take milk in any form, another wanted tea, jelly, etc., 
etc. To be served bitter coffee without cream, and to 
be offered nothing to eat but cold dry water rolls and 

220 



BREAKFAST AND DINNER SAME DAY 221 

orange juice, was already enough to condemn the ho- 
tel and the country. The ladies wished they were 
home where they could have ham and eggs and fried 
potatoes, corn muffins and watered coffee weakened 
with cream. The practice of every-day patriotism 
should begin with breakfast. 

"Well ! I can't talk all morning in congress on an 
empty stomach," said one of the lady doctors. 

"This is terrible," sighed a doctor's wife. "I have 
to eat to maintain my health and strength." 

"How can you, when you haven't any health and 
strength?" said her husband. 

"When I eat I believe in having something to chew 
on," said a stomach specialist. 

"It is terrible to have to fast when you want your 
breakfast," sighed the doctor's wife. 

"It's foolish to want your breakfast when you have 
to fast," said her husband. "When you are in Rome, 
do " 

"If I could only speak Spanish like a man, I'd stir 
things up here," said she. 

"If I could only talk like a woman, so would I ; but 
I'm only a man," said he. 

Upon this one of the doctors stood up and said 
that he had quite enjoyed his milk-coffee, water rolls 
and tongue sandwiches. The ladies looked about the 
room in search of the sandwiches while the men 
smiled and left the table, declaring that they also had 
enjoyed them, particularly the sandwiches. 

At eight o'clock cabs drove up and took us to the 
sabanas over the same route that I had gone on New 



222 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

Year's day. But it was not a holiday and the natives 
were not exhibiting themselves, and the drive was not 
very interesting. We stopped at the Country Club 
grounds, which were not as attractive as those of 
Sefior Arango's place that I had visited, but were 
much larger and had a roomy two-story frame house 
with a veranda all around it wide enough to serve us 
as a dining-room. The club superintended the prepa- 
rations, although the Washington Hotel of Colon had 
a contract for the provisions. Hence the provisions 
were plentiful and the service unexceptionable. 

The day was pleasant and cool for Panama, and 
quite endurable in the early morning. We wandered 
about the grounds for a while examining the tropical 
trees and telling each other all about them. Then we 
took photographs of ourselves under trees and talked 
and watched the preparations for the breakfast on the 
veranda. Some one asked me to go up and look at the 
house. I did so but only got as far as the veranda, 
for I noticed a corner room opening on it that was 
crowded with fellow congresistas ; and after I had 
succeeded in crowding in saw what would have made 
Milwaukee and Louisville glad at heart if they had 
been there. But neither of them were there in the 
flesh. There was beer, whiskey and White Rock water 
enough to overcome the drouth of a German regi- 
ment or the American army. It seemed a pity that 
some one from Milwaukee was not there to help us 
out, for there was a heaping hogshead full of Blue 
Label beer in quart bottles, and not a bottle was 
opened that day; there were two hundred bottles of 




CLUB HOUSE ON THE SABAXAS 
Table Being Set for Our Banquet Breakfast 



BREAKFAST AND DINNER SAME DAY 223 

White Rock water, and only fifty were opened; there 
were a dozen quart bottles of whiskey and only ten 
were drunk. 

Santos Jorge's band of thirty vigorous music-mak- 
ers was there to give tone and tune to the occasion 
and did its best to rouse up and intoxicate us with mar- 
tial and patriotic pieces played at frequent intervals. 
Mr. Santos Jorge, who was the leader of the band 
and the almost constant companion of the medical 
congressmen, was the most prominent musician in the 
republic. He had been in Panama thirteen years and 
was the director of the Panam.a Conservatory of Mu- 
sic. He had been a student of the Madrid Conserva- 
tory and took a prize when he graduated. The Himno 
Istmeno, or Panama National Hymn, is one of his 
compositions and seemed to compare favorably with 
the national airs of other countries. His band was 
made up of whites, negroes and half-breeds, who were 
all well trained and played well, although a trifle too 
staccato and fortissimo for our anti-emotional Anglo- 
Saxon temperament. 

As the slight effect of the early cofifee and rolls 
upon our premature emptiness had worn off by ten 
o'clock, and there were no more trees or houses on 
the place to explain and explore, and no new subjects 
for conversation, we hovered around the veranda lis- 
tening to music and drinking White Rock for an ap- 
petite. After having our official picture taken for the 
benefit of medical history, we sat down to breakfast. 

The tables were spread for a hundred and there 
were only about forty of us, including Panamanians ; 



2 24 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

but as our emptiness grew our courage developed, and 
each of us laid up enough for a rainy day. The dif- 
ference between this breakfast, sent by the Washing- 
ton Hotel from Colon, and the cold bread and bitter 
coffee breakfast eaten and execrated at the Hotel Cen- 
tral a few hours before, was freely expressed in femi- 
nine English, which was loud in praise of Washington 
and in condemnation of Gran Central. 

We returned to Panama at two o'clock, and occupied 
our time from three to six with the reading and discus- 
sion of monographs on surgery and gynecology, to the 
great satisfaction and entertainment of the readers and 
talkers. 

At half past seven o'clock we gathered in the large 
parlor of Hotel Central and waited impatiently for the 
signal to descend to the banquet. We had eaten 
enough at eleven o'clock to nourish us for two or more 
days, and were now to eat enough for four or more 
days, since the menu was twice as elabrate. But we re- 
membered that many stomachs are ruined by dieting, 
and resolved not to be ruined in that way. I give 
a translation with this menu for the benefit of those 
who have no dictionary, and no objection. 

MENU. 

HORS d'cEUVRES. 

Olives. Jambon. Canapds de Caviar. 

POTAGE. 

Consomm^ Sevigne. 

POISSON. 

Corbina ^ la Trouville. 




'^ 



BREAKFAST AND DINNER SAME DAY 225 
MENU— Continued. 

ENTRIES. 

Vol au Vent Richelieu. Filet Piqu6 k la Parisienne. 

PIECE FROIDE. 

Aspic de Foie — Gras Bellevue. 

LEGUMES. 

Asperges — Sauce Mousseline. 

ROTI. 

Lindonneau k la Broche. Salade de Saison. 

DESSERT. 

Glace Marie Louise. Petits Fours. Piece Montee 

VINS. 

Xeres. Chateau La Tour Blanche. Chablis. Margaux. 
Corton. Pommard. 

CHAMPAGNES. 

G. H. Mumm. Moet et Chandon. 

TRANSLATION OP MENU. 

EXTRA WORK. 

Olives. Goodleg. Sofas of Caviar. 

POTTAGE. 

Accomplished Sevign6. 

POISON. 

Crow h. la Trouville. 

ENTRIES. 

Fly-away Richelieu. Quilted Thread k la Paris- woman. 

COLD PIECE. 

Asp Liver — Fleshy Fineview. 

LEGGINS. 

Saucy Aspersions of Muslin. 

ROT. 

London Water a la Spit — Salad of the Seasons. 

DISSERTATION. 

Frosted Marie Louise. Small Furnaces. Mounted Play. 
15 



226 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 
TRANSLATION OF MENU— Continued. 

WINES. 

Xerxes. Catwater of White Tower. Cat Bliss. 
Magpies. Courting Pomade. 

SHAM PAINS. 

G. H. Mummy. Mouth and Chindown. 

After seeing the bill of fare thus exposed in plain 
English the reader will realize what an abomination 
such banquets are, and why the French language is 
used to express and extenuate them. 

The musical program was well selected and well 
executed, and deserved to be recorded. The musicians 
played with great spirit and helped the blood to the 
brain and the word to the tongue much better than 
the eight brands of wine and fourteen varieties of 
food. 



PROGRAMA. 

QUE ejecutarX la banda republicana. 

Himno Istmeno, ..... S. Jorge A. 

Vals — "Red, White and Blue.'! "On American 

Airs," Tovani. 

Sinfonia — "Naiade," .... C. Carlini. 

"Ramona" Two-Step, .... Johnson 

Mazurka — "Feliz ASo," .... Jean Oliver. 

Vals — "Amoureuse," ..... Berger. 

Scena e Duetto nell* Opera Rigoletto, . Verdi. 

Two-Step — "Yankee Girl," .... Lampe. 

Vals — "Les Patineurs," .... Waldteufel 

Selections from "The Prince of Pilsen," . . Luders. 

"American Guard" Quickstep, . . . Brooks. 

"Quartetto di Concerto," .... Perolini. 

El Director, 

Santos Jorge A. 



BREAKFAST AND DINNER SAME DAY 227 

President Amador and the high functionaries of 
state were there to encourage us in our efforts to do 
justice to what was spread before us, and Mrs. Ama- 
dor and other first ladies of the land were there to 
inspire the speakers. 

Speeches were made by President Icaza, U. S. Min- 
ister Barrett, the Panamanian Treasurer, the Minister 
of War, Doctor Brower, Doctor Senn, and others 
whose names I did not learn, each in his own language 
and each one creditable to the speaker and to his coun- 
try. In order to give a semblance of spontaneity to 
the speeches, each speaker had a number given him, 
and when a speaker had spoken and the band had 
played, the one with the next number would stand 
up unannounced and speak as if inspired by the pre- 
ceding speaker and by the occasion. This would have 
worked charmingly had not the crowd called upon an 
extra speaker early in the evening. Doctor Brower, 
whose medieval ancestors had been subject to Span- 
ish rule, and who inherited the temperament of a 
Spaniard and the physique of two Spaniards, did 
not understand Spanish. He, therefore, did not know 
that an extra man without a number had spoken. So 
he mistook his count and arose a number ahead of 
his turn, and ahead of the speaker whom he was to 
have followed, and whose speech was supposed to in- 
spire his. But the doctor was equal to the occasion 
and spoke with as much eloquence as if his speech 
was in place, and as if people knew who he was and 
what he said. His speech elicited much applause, 
particularly from the highest ladies of the land and 



2 28 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

Others who did not understand Enghsh. It was one 
of the best speeches of the evening, only it was out of 
place. 

But the speech of the evening was that of Minister 
Barrett, who, I suppose, never was, and never will be, a 
minister of the gospel ; he is in politics. His speech 
was full of wit, satire and good-natured banter, de- 
livered in a full-chested baritone voice, and made one 
think that to hear a good after-dinner speech was 
worth a bad attack of matutinal indigestion. 

The serving at table was quite rapid and satisfactory 
except that some of the many different kinds of wine 
looked alike, and tasted quite unlike, and the waiters 
mixed them up as they went around filling partially 
emptied glasses. The result was disastrous to the 
nerves of such connoisseurs as we all were. But in 
consequence of rapid serving and short speeches, the 
entertainment was over in time for the guests to go 
over to the clubs in their cocktail coats, and have more 
refreshments and a few straight nightcaps to settle 
the blended wines, and thus oblige no one to get into 
one of those hotel beds until his mind at least was 
properly made up. 

Just what kind of water the Panamanians offered 
the Panamericans, and just what the Panamericans 
accepted from the Panamanians, I can not say from 
observation, but I know that the Panamanians offered 
generously and that the Panamericans were kindly 
disposed to do their duty. "New occasions teach new 
duties," as Lowell said. Feasts are better than fevers 
and postprandials preferable to postmortems, was the 
concensus of the congress. 



BREAKFAST AND DINNER SAME DAY 229 

Having two more banquets to contend with during 
the following twenty-four hours, as well as a short 
scientific session to keep awake at, I sneaked off to 
bed when others went to the clubs, remembering the 
proverb that "He who eats and runs away may live 
to eat some other day," and hoped they were as happy 
as they thought they were. 

During these two days they dined and dinned us 
without intermission. Eating and drinking to the 
strains of stirring music occupied most of our time 
and attention outside of the scientific meetings, and it 
became necessary to give more thought to the filling of 
our stomachs at table than to the unloading of our 
minds upon the congress. Indeed, it was difficult to 
enjoy the scientific meetings when the energies were 
so heavily taxed with gastric and gustatory functions. 
If we had not had so many good times we should have 
enjoyed the meeting more. 



CHAPTER III 

Panama Bay and Paramount Barrett 

An Excursion to the Island of Toboga — Panama from the 
Sea — A Picturesque Village — A Delightful Stroll to the 
Sanatorium — A Banquet Aboard — "We Return Refreshed 
and Invigorated — A Dinner with Minister Barrett — His 
Travels and Experiences — He Wheedles One Empress 
and Amuses Another, Beats Admiral Dewey, Refuses a 
Harem, Shocks a Female Boarding-school, Suppresses a 
Revolution, Discourses upon Elephants and Has a Joke 
Played upon Him — At the Ball — Mr. and Mrs. Wallace — 
Twenty-five Thousand Dollars for Grave Digging. 

An excursion and banquet on the bay and a visit 
to Toboga Island twelve miles out had been planned 
for us, and we assembled Thursday morning at eight 
o'clock at the railway station. A short ride by rail 
took us to the large pier at the Boca or mouth of the 
canal from which a channel has been dredged through 
the shallow water out to the Island of Perico. We start- 
ed from the Boca because the pier at the city of Panama 
stood on dry land at low tide, and the boats were lying 
about on their sides much of the time. 

President Amador and Mrs. Amador were present, 
having embraced this opportunity to make the excur- 
sion with us and visit their country residence on 
the Island of Toboga where they were to remain a 
few days. Colonel Gorgas and Captain Carter and 

230 



PANAMA BAY AND PARAMOUNT BARRETT 231 

their families, as well as several other Canal Zone and 
Panamanian government officials, were also among the 
passengers. 

Two boats had been engaged and two banquets pre- 
pared, but as half of the congress was still on the At- 
lantic Ocean, there was no use in reserving a boat and 
a banquet for it on the Pacific, so we discharged 
one boat and took all of the provisions with us on the 
other, thus guarding against a banqueters' famine. 

As we steamed along the shore our old Spanish- 
looking town of Panama was on our left and the trop- 
ical islands on our right. The city, which occupied a 
rugged projection of land, was a picturesque sight in 
the intense morning sunlight. The white gleaming 
walls, dark roofs and deep shadows formed a lively- 
contrast, and were beautifully framed by the blue of 
the sea below and sky above, and the green of the fo- 
liage around them. When opposite the city the boat 
turned stern toward Panama and passed outward be- 
tween the islands, some of which were quite large 
and some very small. The small ones looked like 
mountain-tops and ridges projecting out of the water, 
and probably formed parts of a submerged ridge. The 
sea was smooth and the sea breeze felt refreshing 
and cool to us in our duck pants and pongee coats, 
and the two hours of riding to Toboga passed quickly 
and comfortably. The word comfortably expresses a 
great deal in the tropics, and means more than the 
words fun and enjoyment. There is a suggestion of 
good luck and thankfulness in it. 

At Toboga a cluster of tiny red-tiled houses 



232 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

stretched along the shore between the blue sea in front 
and the higher, densely foliaged land behind, consti- 
tuting a little fishing village of wondrous beauty as 
viewed from the boat. Arriving off shore we sent 
the President and Mrs. Amador to the beach in a 
row boat, for there was no disfigurement of nature 
by piers or breakwaters. 

Tempted by the beauty and novelty of the foliage, 
several of us hired one of the row boats that hovered 
about the steamer, and were soon on dry land. As a 
fresh cooling sea breeze was blowing we had a pleas- 
ant walk of about a quarter of a mile to the sanatori- 
um, a two-story, wooden, rectangular building which 
was built on posts over the water's edge and girded 
by the conventional wide veranda. It is said to have 
cost about $200,000, and was built for convalescent 
and debilitated employees of the French Canal Com- 
pany. In Chicago it could have been built, I should 
say, for about $2,000, but would have been a ruin long 
ago. There were good baths and a fine spring near 
by. With the island-bound bay and cool sea breeze 
on one side and the luxuriant tropical forest on the 
other, it was an ideal place for invalids and poets, but 
a very idle place for well people. It was a place for 
lounging, dreaming, bathing, smoking, and romantic 
gazing at the beautiful sky and earth. But active 
outdoor sports were incompatible with the climate, 
and the social and business activities that were needful 
to relieve the monotonous splendor of nature were lack- 
ing. 

We sauntered back to the landing-place picking 





TABUGA ISLAND 



PANAMA BAY AND PARAMOUNT BARRETT 233 

ripe mangoes and accepting large pineapples from 
the natives, who would take no pay because we were 
guests of the president. Altogether the novelty of 
the little stroll on this most beautiful of tropical islands 
produced a feeling of enthusiasm and admiration for 
nature such as we used to experience as boys when 
we visited new scenes with new eyes. It seemed like 
something new under the sun. 

On our way back to Panama we sat down to a ban- 
quet breakfast of the same character as on the sabanas 
the day before and which, with the sea air, the stroll 
on the island, and the starvation "coffee-breakfast" in 
the early morning to perform the function of appetiz- 
ers, we ate with as much if not more relish. 

In the evening Dr. Lucy Waite, Doctor Senn and 
myself dined with the Pan-American peacemaker, John 
Barrett, and his secretary in their interesting bachelor 
apartments near Plaza Central. Innumerable pictures 
and mementoes gathered by Mr. Barrett during his 
travels and while he was representing the United 
States at the courts of the mighty, gave the place the 
interest of a museum of art. We felt that we were 
fortunate in having him devote an evening to us, for 
he was one of the busiest men in Panama. But I have 
learned in my dealings with North Americans that 
the busiest men nearly always have more time for ex- 
tra work than those who have not enough to do. A 
successful, busy man seldom does as others do, and 
Mr. Barrett did not do as the Panamanians did. The 
words siesta, gossip and barroom were meaningless 
to him. He paid no attention to the rule that one should 



234 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

neither drink hard nor work hard in the tropics. His 
motto was: "Work everywhere, drink nowhere." He 
was such a hustler that grass did not grow under his 
feet nor hair on his head. He had traveled extensive- 
ly in the Orient. He had visited the five great vice- 
roys of China and had sat upon the dais with the Em- 
press Dowager and had talked her out of 700,000 
taels. He arrived at Manila only ten days after Ad- 
miral Dewey, and outstayed him. He became person- 
ally acquainted with Aguinaldo and thus was more 
successful than Dewey. The Sultan of Sulu offered 
him a harem, but he was busy, and had to refuse. 
While U. S. minister to Siam he accepted, however, 
an invitation to address the graduating class of the 
Young Ladies' Seminary of Bangkok, and told them 
that they were charming young ladies, but soon would 
be old cows with their tongues hanging out. He had 
mistranslated his well-prepared English manuscript 
and had mispronounced what he did not mistranslate. 
He was excused on account of his youth and beauty, 
and because he came from a new country where re- 
fined speech and Oriental etiquette were not culti- 
vated. He had also been minister to Argentina, but 
he did not mention the breaches he had made there. 
Possibly there was not time enough. 

When General Huertas moved on Panama City 
with an army of 300 men and began to dictate to Pres- 
ident Amador, Mr. Barrett advised the president to 
disband the hostile army. The president, to whom this 
method of warfare was a novelty, humored the young 
minister and told them to disband. But they refused. 



PANAMA BAY AND PARAMOUNT BARRETT 235 

He offered them sixty days' extra pay, half down 
and half a week after they had disbanded, but they 
demanded all of the money before disbanding. They 
might serve without pay but they would not stop serv- 
ing without pay. Mr. Barrett advised the president not 
to heed this demand and made an eloquent speech that 
brought them to terms. He told them that Uncle Sam 
was back of President Amador. The soldiers were not 
accustomed to this kind of warfare and disbanded. Af- 
ter the army had disbanded, their guns were stored in 
the American warehouse at Ancon and the defense of 
the city and maintenance of order entrusted to the po- 
lice, who performed after that the double duty of sol- 
diers and policemen. And now, with no army except one 
of words, the words of Uncle Sam, Doctor Amador is 
secure in his position, and at last, "The path of glory 
leads, to the gray," as the poet Grave wrote. 
jl/ Mr. Barrett's delicate private supper was such a re- 
f'^ lief after the gorgeous banquets that we had been 

working at, that we did not really require any atten- 
tion from him. His servant was entertaining and re- 
lieving us to our entire satisfaction. But the worry 
and responsibilities of public office in an unsettled 
and up-building foster-republic, and the fatigue of 
constant activity, did not prevent him giving himself 
up to our unrestrained enjoyment. 

He gave us much information about Siam, where 
he was known as "I am, I am, the great white minis- 
ter at Siam." He said that the Sultan of Siam was 
very intelligent and progressive, that he had many 
wives but had decreed that his son and successor 



236 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

should have but one, and thus had shown that he 
possessed the courage of his convictions. Mr. Barrett 
told us that he had seen Siamese babies smoking ci- 
gars six inches long, and described a case in point. 
He said that elephants were not weaned until they were 
three years old, were not grown up until they were 
twenty, and that their working days were from thirty- 
three to sixty-six years. He said that elephants were 
afraid of mice, and gave an instance in which a mouse 
stampeded the royal herd, and it took six weeks to get 
them back in line again. He told us that the white 
elephant was pink, that the white was all in the white 
of his eye. 

He and the other foreign diplomats dined once a week 
at the Emperor's table. Barrett's regular seat was be- 
side the Empress-in-chief, and it fell to him to enter- 
tain her. In due time ordinary subjects of conversa- 
tion had been worn threadbare, and the Empress 
helped him out by appointing a subject at each dinner 
for conversation at the next, which enabled him to look 
up his vocabulary and his ideas. On one occasion she 
asked him to give her some ideas on ladies' hats. He 
studied hats in the cyclopedia and dictionary during 
the few stray moments of quiet and leisure he could 
find, and came to the dinner feeling competent to 
address the Empress in her own language on a femi- 
nine subject. But while he was discoursing eloquently 
about hats, and mingling Oriental compliments with 
incidental wisdom, she suddenly burst out laughing 
and kept on laughing until she burst some stays. The 
Emperor then became intensely curious to learn how 



PANAMA BAY AND PARAMOUNT BARRETT 237 

the White Minister had done it. When finally the 
lady had gotten through laughing she told him what 
Mr. Barrett had said, viz.: "Your Majesty wears the 
most beautiful busts of any empress or queen in the 
Orient. Their originality of shape and harmony of 
coloring have charmed many an artist." Mr. Barrett 
laughed also, thinking that he had pleased the Em- 
press, but later learned that he had used the word 
bust in place of hat. However, he had not failed to 
amuse the Empress, which was quite a distinction. 

Apropos of hats, we asked him why he had not 
married. He said that he preferred to be happy. His 
political duties already called upon him to do many 
things that he knew nothing about, but had not yet ex- 
acted that. He preferred to be a bachelor, and, as 
Doctor Waite expressed it, he shone better as a soli- 
taire. He had read somewhere that wives talk in their 
sleep. He could endure any kind of babel or babble 
for eighteen hours a day, but not for twenty-four. 

He had a little joke played upon him at his dinner 
that was not premeditated. The waiter was a quick 
and active man, as I suppose everybody about Mr. 
Barrett must be, and served us rapidly and well. But 
he got behind in his work and was hurried in serving 
the dessert, and had allowed the water glasses to be- 
come empty. He rushed out after water and in his 
haste grabbed a couple of bottles of white wine in- 
stead of White Rock water, and filled our tumblers 
with it. Mr. Barrett was busy talking and did notice 
the error. We were thirsty, and as the wine was very 
mild and of excellent quality we gladly drank it like 



238 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

water. I merely remarked that it was the best water 
I had tasted in Panama. We were soon through eat- 
ing, and just before arising Mr. Barrett somewhat 
hastily took a large draught out of his tumbler. He 
swallowed and cleared his throat and looked at us. 
But as we said nothing, he said nothing, and he prob- 
ably does not know to-day that we drank his best wine 
like plain water. 

After giving us another hour of instructive and 
amusing conversation while sitting on the little Span- 
ish balcony outside of the windows, he accompanied 
us to the ball. Here were assembled the beauty and 
talent of Panama. Preparations had been made for 
a grand dance and an elaborate supper at many small 
square, and a few tete-a-tete tables. We met nearly 
everybody we had met before and many that we had 
not, both Panamanians and North Americans. The 
naval officers of the Battleship Boston also added eclat 
to the occasion. 

I had pleasant chats with our Chicago friends, Mr. 
and Mrs. Wallace. They lived in a house owned by 
the U. S. government not far from Plaza Central in 
the crowded part of the city. But Mr. Wallace had 
contrived to get out of the crowd to a certain extent 
by going upwards. He had built a sort of roof gar- 
den or open-air story on the top of the house, and had 
made other improvements that rendered it in comfort, 
although not in kind, as nearly equal to our North 
American homes as is consistent with the climate. He 
was enthusiastic about his canal work and apparently 
happy, and expecting to keep right on, although a 



PANAMA BAY AND PARAMOUNT BARRETT 239 

few months' residence in Panama is a great disillu- 
sioner. Mrs. Wallace seemed cheerful and contented in 
her new surroundings and apparently enjoyed great 
popularity in society. Whether she would have been 
able to stand the climate for ten or twelve years without 
injury to her health, and whether he could have re- 
tained sufficient vigor during such a long sweltering 
period to prosecute the work, must have been a ques- 
tion of some concern to him. It certainly would have 
shortened the natural course of his life somewhat and 
was not worth while unless there was something in it 
for him besides money. Wealth is not his who gets it, 
but his who enjoys it. He who gives a part and risks 
all of his life, and sacrifices all of his comfort and en- 
joyment of life, and does the work, deserves credit and 
appreciation. 

At the time of the reorganization of the Canal Com- 
mission the newspapers of the country were talking 
wildly about a hundred thousand dollar man with pow- 
er and authority to build the canal and build it quickly. 
They spoke of finding him, but left Mr. Wallace practi- 
cally out of consideration. I do not doubt but this gave 
Mr. Wallace an attack of dyspepsia and that he took 
a gloomy view of things and saw himself at the end of 
four or five years with his health shattered by strug- 
gles with climatic and Congressional influences and 
hindrances, and discarded by a forgetful and impa- 
tient country. The country had already begun to go 
back on his contract, and the understanding with him, 
and I suppose he felt that he had the same right. If 
it was a question of salary only, why earn it in Panama 



240 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

where red heat and yellow fever were suggestive of 
future rewards and quick realization? Twenty-five 
or thirty thousand dollars is a small sum for digging 
one's own grave and then not being allowed to occu- 
py it. "To thine own self be true ; and , . ." 



CHAPTER IV 

Congress Redivivus 

Visit to the Culebra Cut — Culebra Ridge — ^Trying to 
Learn of Time of Departure of Boats — Yellow Fever 
Causes Stampede — The Eastern Contingent Arrives and 
Visits President Amador — All Is Lively Again — Last 
Business Meeting that Was not the Last — The Great 
Eastern Report — Another Meeting Voted — Wishing Well 
of Panama. 

On Friday morning the congresistas were taken to 
the Culebra cut to learn how a little mountain could 
be gnawed in two, and show how a big breakfast could 
be swallowed. As I had heard all there was to be said 
about the cut and had gone through it slowly and com- 
fortably on an express train, I did not care to hurry 
through it on foot under a hot sun ; for after all there 
was more to be imagined than seen. As far as the 
banquet was concerned there was more to be seen 
than could be eaten, and my stomach needed rest, 
not exercise. But the others had had more experience 
and practice in eating than in fasting or dieting, and 
naturally preferred doing what they could do best. 

But I can not pass this part of my narrative without 
indulging in a digression — not to my stomach, but 
to the great Culebra* Mountain Ridge, Nature's pre- 

*Culebra is the Spanish for serpent. 
16 241 



242 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

historic sea serpent, which had successfully stood the 
test of earthquakes and volcanic action, and had held 
the impatient oceans apart ever since it arose out of 
the open sea and divided them. It was there when 
Columbus discovered the continent, when Cortez 
fought, Pizarro crossed and Morgan plundered. It 
witnessed the moving of all the gold that glutted 
Spain. It laughed at the engineering schemes of ex- 
plorers. It snored at the pickaxes and shovels of 
France. It balked the tricks of trusts, the greed of 
commerce and the changes of time. It is left for U. 
S. to conquer it. Let U. S. watch and pay. Let U. S. 
smite the rock and start the water. Let U. S., the only 
Americans, live up to our pretensions. The eyes of 
the world are upon U. S. and the great Culebra, the 
dreaming dragon of Panama snores and sings, "Lass 
mich schlafen." Let U. S. be wiser than the serpent. 
Let U. S. return with interest the gold that was car- 
ried away by Spain, and our children shall conquer 
the great Culebra. 

I executed a little Chinese shopping after "coflfee," 
and did considerable scouting, trying to learn some- 
thing about the departure of boats from Colon for 
New Orleans, but accomplished nothing definite. I 
had written three days before to W. Andrews & Co., 
the agents at Colon, and had just received an indefi- 
nite answer referring me to the Panama Estrella and 
Herald, in which the arrivals would be announced. 
This was quite unsatisfactory, for the time of depart- 



CONGRESS REDIVIVUS 243 

ure was never known until after the boats had ar- 
rived. And as they always departed as soon as they 
had unloaded, and the consignments to Colon were 
frequently small, I might not have time to get there 
after the notice had gone through the delays of being 
printed at Panama nearly a hundred miles from the 
port. 

I ate my eleven o'clock breakfast in the usual way, 
and afterward took my siesta in the usual way, and 
attended the three o'clock scientific meeting in the 
usual way, feeling much more fit for mental exertion 
than if I had breakfasted and bibbed in the Culebra 
cut. Papers on General Medicine were read and our 
ignorance of life and death scientifically expounded. 

Yellow fever rumors and mosquito stories had been 
circulating since the evening before and the ladies 
were becoming panicky and were clamoring to return 
to Colon to be ready to catch the first ship for home. 
Five fever patients and two suspects had been dis- 
covered and taken to the hospital. Hence Doctor and 
Mrs. Brower, Doctor Waite, Doctor Senn, Doctor and 
Mrs. Crile, Doctor Newman, Doctor Frank and sev- 
eral others did not hesitate to take the afternoon train 
for Colon. I had no fear of yellow fever and malaria 
since mosquitoes had corners on these markets and 
had not bitten me, or at least had not succeeded in pen- 
etrating through my skin. Panama mosquitoes are 
small and have short stingers. Hence I concluded 
that it was safe to wait until the next day, in order to 



244 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

see and say goodbye to the fashionable Easterners 
when they "passed first base on their home run." 

About the time our afternoon session, which was the 
last of the scientific ones, adjourned, the Eastern del- 
egates arrived under the guidance of the faithful and 
long-suffering President Icaza, who had been at 
Colon waiting for them since the evening before. 
Those of us who had remained accompanied the newly 
arrived delegates to President Amador's second com- 
plimentary reception, given in order that none of the 
members might be slighted. Champagne was again 
passed around and constituted the only refreshment 
connected with the congress that the Easterners ar- 
rived in time to enjoy. And that probably did not 
come out of the $25,000 barrel. The Westerners had 
done their duty. 

At the hotel all was lively again, for the new arriv- 
als more than replaced those who had departed, both 
in numbers and animation. The closing business meet- 
ing, scheduled for 8 P. M., was called to order at nine 
in an immense scantily furnished corner room on the 
second floor over the barroom. It was called the par- 
lor. Ladies and guests were present, and the ma- 
jority of the men were in evening dress. The army 
medical officers were dressed in white duck suits 
trimmed with heavy white braid on the front edges 
of the jackets, on the shoulders, cuflfs and outer seams 
of the trouser legs. This white, fancy dress suit con- 
stituted a tropical uniform of appropriate beauty and 



CONGRESS REDIVIVUS 245 

purity, and was worn on full-dress occasions by gov- 
ernment officials. A formal speech was made by a del- 
egate of each country represented, and finally the 
Eastern contingent asked the privilege of making a 
report. The favor was courteously granted. 

Doctor MacDonald, of Greater New York, arose 
and began his report. But the forgotten National 
band was in attendance below in the patio and, think- 
ing it their turn, started playing, "There'll Be a Hot 
Time in the Old Town To-night," so that although 
the doctor's lips moved vigorously and there was in- 
telligence in his facial expression, no voice could be 
heard. The secretary's smile vanished for a moment 
as he rushed out on the veranda of the patio and waved 
the well-meaning musical patriots, who had stuck to 
the congress closer than friends, to silence. When or- 
der was restored and smiles smoothed out, the speaker 
began again. 

"Mr. President! Members of the Fourth Pan- 
American Medical Congress! Physicians of Panama! 
Conquerors and possessors of this beautiful waist of 
our glorious continent, of which the United States is 
the bosom and Brazil the bustle! 

"On behalf of those who, like Achilles, have been 
beaten about by unpropitious winds ; on behalf of those 
who were unfortunate enough to embark in an ancient 
ship called the Athos, built by Greeks and navigated by 
dagoes, and renamed by us the Pathos, I wish to give 
greetings, and submit our report to the North Ameri- 



246 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

can members, the Middle American members, and the 
South American member. 

"Our classic ship had chosen December 12, 1904, at 
II A. M. to sail from Baltimore, and promised to 
arrive at Colon the next year in time for us to be 
here to breakfast with you at 11 A. M. But the ship 
left one day late. It was bound for a Spanish country 
where to-morrow is always in time, and where to- 
morrow never arrives. And the jealous dagoes, not 
to be outdone by rivals or arrivals on the old Spanish 
main, added another to-morrow, and another, know- 
ing that they had only doctors to deal with. 

"And we, like good Samaritans and average physi- 
cians, allowed them to do as they pleased, viz., to start 
late and put us in a special ship that has not been 
seaworthy since the birth of Christ, and is good only 
for doctors who are supposed to delight in resuscitat- 
ing one another when shipwrecked. And when we 
awoke on the day we were to arrive for breakfast we, 
to our surprise, discovered that we were three days 
from our destination. We consulted, we agreed, but 
we found no remedy. We had no firearms about our 
persons, and only firewater at our disposal. We had 
lances and poisons and corkscrews with us, but could 
only kill time. And so we allowed the dagoes to live 
to bring us here. 

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is our excuse which 
must, on account of the importance of our mission, 
go on our records as a matter of history and hysteria, 
for we had members of both sexes among us. 



CONGRESS REDIVIVUS 247 

"But we are here, and desire to thank you for wait- 
ing for us, for delaying President Amador's recep- 
tion until this afternoon, and the opening exercises 
until this evening. We are glad to come in time to 
assist you in honoring and emptying the $25,000 bar- 
rel.* 



♦The following newspaper clipping deserves to be pre- 
served as a part of the subsequent history of this remarkable 
boat: 

FACE DANGERS OF OCEAN. 



VACATION PARTY IN PERIL. 



STEAMER ATHOS ARRIVES OFF SCOTLAND LIGHT-SHIP WITH 

A TALE OF WOE AND A LOT OF SICK AND 

HUNGRY PASSENGERS. 



"New York, Aug. 22. — ^The steamer Athos, seventeen 
days late, with eight passengers, a cargo of rotten bananas 
and the bones of half-eaten sharks on board, arrived off 
Scotland light-ship late last night. 

"July 30 the Donald Steamship Company's steamer Athos 
left Port Antonio, Jamaica, for New York, a six day's voyage, 
with provisions in plenty for this short period. Three hours 
out of port an eccentric rod on the engine broke, and from 
that hour until last Sunday, proceeding sometimes only an 
hour a day under her own steam, the Athos drifted at the 
mercy of storms, in constant danger of famine, once without 
drinking water, and receiving supplies from time to time from 
passing vessels, until the disabled steamer gave up Aug. 20 
and signaled the Altai for a tow. This steamer brought the 
Athos to New York. 

"The trouble was in the engine all the time. From July 
30 to Aug. 7 one to two breaks daily were recorded. The 
log chronicles the fact that the daily delay was only thirty 
minutes long Aug. 5. Two days later the catching of the 
sharks is recorded. Chinamen on board attempted to eat 
the sharks, but the meat made them ill and the fish were 



248 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

One of the congresistas arose to a point of order 
and informed the ancient orator of the Athos that we 
were celebrating the closing session, that the meet- 
ings had been held, the contributions discussed and 
the contents of the barrel dissipated. 

MacDonald of Athos looked enquiringly at Icaza 
of Panama who, understanding neither English nor 
Athos when spoken so fluently, smiled politely and 
said nothing, while the band taking advantage of a 
moment of silence, played enthusiastically and loudly. 

"Mr. President," he began again, when the band had 

thrown into the sea During the next two days boats were 
lowered from the Athos in search of food fish. 

"bananas taint water." 

"Aug. 8 the disabled steamer sighted the steamship Adiron- 
dack and signaled 'All well on board,' but Aug. 10 the last 
tank of water was opened and was found to be tainted with 
the juice of rotting bananas. Some dolphin were caught two 
days later, and Aug. 13 the incipient famine was relieved by 
the steamer Montevideo, which supplied provisions. 

"Between Aug. 10 and 17 the engine's shaft was useless, 
and not only was the steamer forced to drift about while 
repairs were under way, but for two days of this period a 
great storm and high seas broke over the helpless steamship. 
The log meanwhile indicates that more dolphin were caught. 
Aug. 18 the coupUng flange broke and the Athos abandoned 
the attempt to make New York under her own steam, after 
twenty days of repeated accidents. It was decided to accept 
the first offer of a tow. This did not come for two days, 
during which a second famine was averted by the steamer 
Vera, which came alongside the Athos, supplying food and 
drink. 

"Worse even than the danger of famine and of thirst, the 
passengers say, was the odor of the decaying banana cargo. 

"At Scotland light-ship last night the tow line broke as 
a last chapter in her long series of accidents, and the Athos 
could not repair the broken line in the dark, but anchored 
for the night, while the Altai brought her passengers to quar- 
antine. To-day tugs were sent out to brmg the Athos into 
port."- 



CONGRESS REDIVIVUS 249 

done its duty, "I am glad there is a congresista left 
to tell the tale. I understand that the previous delib- 
erations of the congress have been carried on by a 
minority (since the majority were in the Athos, now 
the Pathos, holding majority meetings) and are there- 
fore void. If they are not void, I move that they be 
voided, and that the congress begin over again." 

The secretary ventured to say that such was an im- 
possibility since there was nothing left of the $25,000 
barrel but a barrel of beer, a hundred bottles of 
White Rock, a can of evaporated cream, and half a 
bottle of Mountain Dew. 

"Then I withdraw my motion," said the speaker, 
"and move that all of the meetings held on the Athos, 
and afterward on the Pathos, be reported in full to 
the secretary, and be constituted a part of the transac- 
tions of the Fourth Pan-American Medical Congress. 

The South American delegate arose and spoke 
against the motion as being irregular and unparlia- 
mentary, and would establish a bad precedent. He 
wished to place the vote of the entire continent of 
South America on record against it. 

Doctor MacDonald replied, saying that he spoke 
for North America. He was from Greater New 
York, in which lived one out of every twenty-one per- 
sons of the United States ; the others lived out of town. 
Therefore, in behalf of those he represented, he felt 
it his duty to insist upon the motion. It would en- 
able the Athosnians or Pathosnians (whichever name 
might in the future prevail) to hold another closing 
scientific session maiiana for the presentation of the 
Pathos proceedings, and to leave immediately after- 



2 so THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

ward so as to reach Havana on the last day of the 
meeting of the Pan-American Pubhc Health Asso- 
ciation — and be able to do the same thing there. Mac- 
Donald was a born leader, and conducted himself 
more like a man accustomed to dictate terms at the 
head of a nation rather than at the head of a bed. 

The president listened with rapt attention and, not 
understanding the New York dialect, smiled politely 
in approval. Thereupon the secretary put the motion 
and the Pathosnians, being in the majority, carried it. 
The secretary explained the situation to the presi- 
dent, who smiled and nodded, but whether 'twas with 
pleasure, displeasure or in sarcasm, no one knew. A 
motion to adjourn to meet at 8 A. M. the next morn- 
ing prevailed. The band then played Mendels- 
sohn's "Wedding March" and the meeting broke up 
brilliantly. 

What transpired at the business meeting the next 
morning at 8 A. M., I do not know, for I took the train 
for Colon at seven, fearing to delay any longer lest 
in the meantime a ship might arrive and set sail with 
my Chicago friends. 

I was treated well by the Panamanians right up to 
the end, and will always retain a kind feeling for them 
and their gentlemanly doctors. I hope that Panama 
will apply for statehood in the United States in the near 
future. We like the Panamanians, and wish to take 
them into our family and share with them our pros- 
perity, our affections and their afflictions. Colombians 
are apt to distrust us and believe that we have captured 
Panama, but they are mistaken. Panama has captured 
us and our money, and we forgive them. 



CHAPTER V 

To See Ourselves as Others See Us 

Comparisons — Our Countrymen Refined in Feeling but often 
Inconsiderate in Conduct — Instances of the Latter Qual- 
ity — Thoughtlessness and Indifference in Public — Gour- 
mands — Three Varieties — The Young or Simple Gour- 
mand — The Acquired or Temperamental Gourmand — 
The Specialized or Calculating Gourmand — Dangers of 
Gourmandizing — Evading the Results. 

To be or not to be polite, that is the question. 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous manners, 
As the courteous Spaniard does before U. S., 
Or to take up arms against a sea of courtesy 
And, by opposing, end it? — To smile — to — bow 
No more; — and by such conduct end 
The inconvenience and the thousand amenities 
Politeness calls for — etc. 

During the ride back to Colon on Saturday morn- 
ing, instead of admiring the scenery I fell into a sort 
of saturnine revery appropriate to the winding up of a 
medico-social congress in a country in which hos- 
pitality and its time-honored formalities had not yet 
suffered deterioration. I had associated during my 
first week in Panama with Spanish Americans and 
cabmen, and during the second week with my own 
countrymen and, being in the proper mood, could not 

251 



252 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

help making comparisons. The Spanish Americans 
and cabmen had been poHte and courteous, while the 
manners of some of the no less worthy North Ameri- 
cans had been as unpolished as their boots. 

We have plenty of money as compared with these 
poor Panamanians, and we know it ; everybody knows 
it. We enjoy spending it freely entertaining and 
"treating" friends and acquaintances, or in doing them 
favors, yet we are apt to be exacting and business- 
like in our casual relations with strangers whose in- 
terests conflict with ours or who do not awaken our 
sympathies. We generally know what ordinary po- 
liteness demands of us, and practise it upon special 
occasions when we are on our behavior, but we are 
too natural to cultivate politeness for its own sake. 
Society manners have for us a savor of insincerity, 
and we so often neglect to assume its conventional 
forms that we finally forget to do so and become im- 
polite by habit. In crowds we push ahead, fail to 
give others their rights and commit all sorts of petty 
improprieties. In registering at a hotel or buying a 
ticket or choosing a seat in a public place, we are apt 
to take advantage of those who politely take their 
turn, unless we are reminded that we must not tres- 
pass, when we may feel ashamed and subside. In 
Paris one is knocked down or put out for such behav- 
ior. Hence, Parisians are polite. 

At Hotel Central a copy of the daily newspaper 
was placed in the office for reference in looking up 
announcements and news items, and was kept careful- 
ly folded at one end of the counter, against an ele- 



ro SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US 253 

vated case, to show that it was not a stray paper. 
When the members of the congress arrived it soon 
disappeared. A Westerner, who probably wished to 
save his nickel and did not think of anything else, 
came out of the dining-room after breakfast, saw it, 
took it up, carried it to the front door, seated him- 
self and read it for twenty minutes. He then put it 
under him and sat on it. He might at least have re- 
turned the paper for which he had not paid to its 
place. He would still have saved his nickel. Prob- 
ably he knew better than he did, but had acquired the 
habit of not stopping to think, and anyway didn't care 
Adam. 

Another instance of thoughtless conduct was that 
of a very prominent, distinguished-looking physician 
whom I found sitting at my table one evening when 
I came to dinner. He was waiting to be served, and 
sat there with both elbows on the table, gazing dream- 
ily at the ceiling and nibbling at a crust of bread which 
he held in both hands. He was probably tired — too 
tired, or perhaps too indifferent, to remember his table 
manners. Besides there was no one else at the table, 
and those about him at the other tables were all stran- 
gers; and what did he care for them, so his elbows 
were rested and his hunger relieved. 

American travelers will gladly pay a good price 
for a good meal or a good room, yet will often sneak 
out of feeing the waiter or porter, when they know 
it is the custom to give small fees. It may be wrong 
to fee waiters, but the Bible says there is a time 
for everything. 



254 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

I am sorry to say that a member of the Pan-Ameri- 
can Medical Congress was guilty of rudeness toward 
the lovable, ever-smiling secretary, Doctor Calvo. The 
member refused to pay the full registration fee of ten 
dollars in gold because a friend who had been to the 
congress when it met in Mexico, had told him that he 
only paid five dollars in gold. Doctor Calvo looked 
at him with that pleasant, meek smile of his, shrugged 
his shoulders, showed him the printed rules calling for 
ten dollars in gold, and said, "Ah! In Mexico! Your 
friend make it go dere, but / can not make it go here," 
and kept on smiling. A North American official 
would neither have joked nor smiled, nor have exhibit- 
ed such politeness — a politeness that did credit to the 
little secretary, and certainly seemed preferable to 
our sincere but abrupt U. S. method of dealing with 
such customers. When the objector had left without 
registering. Doctor Calvo, with a scintillating smile, 
whispered in my ear the Spanish proverb, "Long 
journey, long lies." 

This out-and-out, straightforward, honest North 
American only wanted his rights, and did not stop or 
care to consider that politeness made it obligatory, 
and that a finer feeling would have made it a pleasure, 
to pay even double dues to the half dozen physicians 
of the smallest and poorest republic on the continent 
who were straining themselves to entertain a crowd of 
physicians from the largest and richest republic in the 
world, and who would be responsible to the printer 
for the cost of the transactions. He did not refuse, 
however, to partake of his share of the $25,000 appro- 



TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US 255 

priated by their government for our entertainment. 
A Spaniard under similar circumstances might have 
felt imposed upon, but he would have smiled and paid 
— which is politeness. "He who sows courtesy reaps 
friendship," is another Spanish proverb. But the hon- 
est, home-made doctor could not appreciate foreign 
manners and methods, and remarked to a friend, on 
another occasion, that those Spanish fellows were too 
blamed polite for him. They reminded him of Josh 
Billings' geese who lowered their heads while going 
through a barn doorway eighteen feet high. But that 
sort of doctors are gradually dying off. Better be 
such a goose than such a doctor. 

I do not know whether I ought to say anything 
about our American gourmands or not. Gourmands 
are indigenous to all countries but there are certain 
species in this country that are more or less character- 
istic. In foreign nations, as everywhere, the healthy 
child is always a gourmand, but he is usually taught 
table manners quite early unless he belongs to the 
lower classes, where caste immures him, and where 
polished manners do not form a part of politeness. 
But in this country so many men whose parents were 
uncultured or negligent in their parental duties, are 
successful in obtaining the means with which to live 
well and travel, that the American gourmand is met 
everywhere. When you see him eat, you know what 
he is, no matter where he is or what he eats. His 
palate and purse are not in the same class. He car- 
ries cowboy manners among cultivated people, adver- 
tising abroad the American brand of "Liberty, equal- 
ity and fraternity." 



256 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

I will mention three concrete cases: one, of the 
youthful starved gourmand; another, of the mature, 
temperamental variety, the gourmet; and another, the 
deliberate, systematic complete gourmand. 

The young gourmand first attracted my attention 
by his pale complexion, sunken cheeks and spindle 
legs. I diagnosed consumption at first sight, but was 
only half right. His sunken uneasy eye suggested 
starvation. In our conversation which inevitably 
turned to eating and drinking, he said that he did not 
see how people could eat too much, and that he never 
injured himself eating — he did not live to eat. I nat- 
urally inferred that he really was in need of a little 
gourmandizing. 

I watched him at dinner. He was the first at table 
and as I came in he sat there eating olives and flirting 
with wild-eyed impatience, first with one dish, then 
with another. When soup was served he stretched 
out his arm to assist the waiter in putting it down, as if 
afraid that a drop might be spilled ; and immediately 
bowed down his head over it and "done his level best." 
He had finished it by the time the others were fairly 
started. He then reached for the chow-chow, put a 
few pieces on his bread-plate, ate them quickly and 
sat glancing at the hors-d'oeuvres that were out of his 
reach. He spoke to no one, but sat leaning slightly 
forward like a panther ready to spring at meat or 
whatever might come within his reach. Pretty soon 
he asked his neighbor to pass him the radishes, and 
put a few on his plate. Finishing these, he asked for 
the olives. He was very quiet, and perhaps no one but 



TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US 257 

myself, who sat opposite to him, noticed his famine. 
When the meats began to come, his head went up and 
his nose was leveled at it like a pointer dog's. He 
did not, however, eat very much of the meat or veg- 
etables, but took a large quantity of jelly with it, and 
afterward more jelly. When the dessert came he 
helped himself liberally, ate it rapidly and looked at 
the plates of the others as if he wanted more. While 
they were eating theirs leisurely and conversing, he 
handed his plate to the waiter and asked for a clean 
one. As soon as he got it he reached across the table 
for an orange and ate it, then an apple, then some 
raisins. While the others were finishing he sat and 
watched their plates, first looking longingly at one 
and then at another, thus tantalizing himself until the 
last person had left the table. Then as he got up he 
put an apple and an orange in his pocket. The dinner 
seemed to be an hour of anxiety and longing rather 
than an hour of rest and enjoyment. Two hours later 
he was eating an apple on deck, when his friend, upon 
noticing it, said, "I declare, you eat about every five 
minutes in the day." 

I suppose that this stuffed gourmand, this food-con- 
sumptive, this sweetmeat starveling, this hors 
d'oeuvre horror, really thought that he did not eat 
much because he did not believe in eating much hearty 
food and that hors d'oeiwres, sweets and fruit did not 
count heavily as food, and that he could eat them all 
of the time without injury to himself. It is true that 
there is not a large proportion of food value in most 
of our Northern fruits nor much proportionate diges- 

17 



258 THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

tion required, but there is often a great deal of indi- 
gestion to them. The amount of stomach space and 
absorption required to accommodate the constant in- 
flux of the mass of fruits and sweetmeats he ate would 
have enabled him to appropriate enough meat and 
bread and butter to fill out the sockets in his eyes, the 
cups in his cheeks and the bows in his thighs, and con- 
vert his restive panther expression to that of a sleek, 
mild-eyed pussy cat. 

The mature, temperamental gourmand is a square 
trotter with a record. He goes straight for the goal 
and beats the field. He is talkative and good-natured, 
and not only enjoys good food but enjoys himself and 
his surroundings while eating. He is greedy from 
selfishness and a desire to get all there is out of a 
meal, rather than greedy from any unnatural craving 
for food. He has the best he can afford. He fees the 
waiter and gets served first and well, to the disadvan- 
tage of others who depend upon the same waiter and 
always have to wait; he makes waiters of us all. He 
is frank and open in his conduct and unconscious of 
inconveniencing others. He is apt to be a good man- 
ager, and enjoys his success in getting the best of the 
meal, and supposes that others are also looking out 
for number one. He has the touch of nature that 
makes the whole world kin, for we all love the best 
to eat, and Christian charity should lead us to enjoy 
seeing others get it. 

The third kind, the many-sided, systematic gour- 
mand, has not the wild greed of the panther nor the 
competitive go of the race-horse ; he is more like the 



TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US 259 

domestic animal. He adapts himself to his surround- 
ings, and watches for chances. You may eat with him 
once and notice nothing, for he knows he eats as he 
ought not, and may dissemble and restrain himself in 
company. But among intimate friends or among en- 
tire strangers he indulges himself more or less covert- 
ly. When he sits down at table he soon begins to help 
himself to such hors d'oeuvres as are near. He talks 
a little when not daft after some dish; but if maneu- 
vering for something, answers questions absent- 
mindedly, although he may start up and answer more 
in detail after having obtained what he was after. If 
the soup is good he eats it quickly, and if he can catch 
the waiter's eye he may, without attracting attention, 
get another plate of it. Between courses he keeps 
himself busy eating of the dainties within reach, or 
quietly asks his neighbor to pass what is out of his 
reach. His jaws work constantly and contentedly. If 
anything is passed he takes some and eats it immedi- 
ately, and is ready for more, should it be passed back 
to its place. He is a master of opportunity. If a 
friend has wine or other delicacy and offers it to him 
he invariably accepts and takes a liberal quantity, and 
will usually accept a second time although with a half- 
expressed excuse for taking it. Or, if his neighbor 
does not offer it he will delicately hint for it by ques- 
tioning or by praising it, and when it is offered say, 
"Just a taste, to see what it is like," and will help 
himself liberally. He eats steadily and cares but little 
for conversation until there is an interval when noth- 
ing is being passed or can be reached or be asked for, 



,26o THE PAN-AMERICAN MEDICAL CONGRESS 

or until the dessert is served and there is nothing more 
to be had, when he becomes quite congenial. He is 
not a suborner of the morals and manners of waiters. 
He is stingy out of selfishness and smallness, and usual- 
ly obtains what he wants without recourse to tipping. 

Nature is kind to him in not killing him outright. 
As a rule, she has arranged our systems so that the 
excesses partly correct themselves. The superfluous 
food acts mechanically to evacuate itself from the sys- 
tem and may for a time act less harmfully than would 
a constant moderate excess. But Nature is consistent. 
Appendicitis and gallstones lie in wait for him ; ulcera- 
tion and cancer of the stomach, diabetes, Bright's dis- 
ease, rheumatism, gout, asthma, dropsy, apoplexy, etc., 
are at the other end of his path, and if one of them does 
not attack him soon, another will later. The danger of 
living lies in eating. To die of one of these diseases, 
or to require an operation for appendicitis or gall- 
stones ought to make the victim ashamed of himself. 

I have not wasted words on our ordinary, every- 
day business gourmand, the one who dines at home 
or in a boarding-house, and lunches at restaurants, 
and goes but little into what is called society. He is 
a hard worker, perhaps a hustler. He is a necessary 
evil and is tolerable until he eats, which he does as an 
automobile travels. He takes large bites in rapid 
succession, fingers his food to help make schedule time 
and talks with his mouth full, if he is a talker. He is 
too numerous to mention and too common to require 
a description. 



TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US 261 

These may not be representative types, but they rep- 
resent actual observations and they abound. They 
may not be pecuHarly American but they were Ameri- 
cans. They are somewhat different from European 
gourmands I have seen. The higher the grade of 
civiHzation the less pronounced the types. Each coun- 
try, in fact, has its own varieties, and they are found 
everywhere except at the poles. Yet even in the Arc- 
tic regions travelers are apt to be great gourmands, 
although seldom gourmets. They have been known 
to eat everything in sight, from hair oil to shoe polish, 
from old shoes to dish cloths, and boast of it afterward 
— if they survived it. 



PART III 



BACK 



Part III 

CHAPTER I 

Accommodations at Colon 

Arrival — Queer Methods of the Manager of Washington 
Hotel — Driving People Away — The Astor Hotel and the 
Swiss Hotel — The Town Noises — Advantages of the Wash- 
ington Hotel — Reason for the PecuUar Treatment — The 
Veranda and the Breeze — A Delightful Room to Sleep 
in — A Healthy Situation at Last — The Shower Bath and 
"Next" — A Bald-headed Dude in a Three-bedded Room 
— The Meals — No More Siestas Needed — Gathering Cocoa- 
nuts and Throwing Them into the Sea — A Fine Place for 
Useless Windmills — A Doctor Goes Hunting — A Tropical 
Shower and a Glorious Morning. 

The remainder of the Western contingent, includ- 
ing myself, arrived at Colon about lo A. M. on Satur- 
day, January 7th, and went to the Washington Hotel. 
As usual the manager had no vacant beds. A guest 
arriving in the morning would find him busy with his 
little grocery store that adjoined the hotel office, and 
could not ascertain whether any vacancies would oc- 
cur before night or not. If a guest arrived in the af- 
ternoon the places had been given to those who had 
arrived in the morning. I knew this and waited until 

265 



266 BACK 

the manager could give me more definite information. 
Doctor and Mrs. Crile and Doctor and Mrs. Palmer, 
however, were square-dealing and plain-speaking 
North Americans, and took him at his word when 
he shrugged his Italian shoulders and said in French 
that he had no empty beds or rooms. They went to 
the Astor Hotel where Doctor and Mrs. Brower were 
stopping and which was located near the center of the 
town, one short block from the main street and main 
noises. They said that the food was quite satisfactory 
after it had been supplemented by the fruit laid in by 
them and which could always be obtained at the public 
market. Doctor Brower and his followers seemed to 
think that in Colon man could live by fruit alone, but 
many of us felt that we could live by water alone ; and 
thus we were divided into two camps, one near the 
market and the other near the sea. A few West- 
erners who had no patience with the foreign 
diplomacy of the Washington Hotel manager found 
good rooms and eatable food at the Swiss Hotel, 
which was located on the main business thoroughfare 
called Front Street. There it was noisy within as well 
as without, for the building was a wooden shell that 
conveyed the indoor sounds from hall to hall and room 
to room until the last guest was in bed. A merry-go- 
round with its shrill music marred the early evening, 
the carousing public disturbed the late evening and 
the switch engines and freight trains puffed and rat- 
tled all night along the main street in a way that sug- 
gested insomnia. As the town was only three streets 
wide and the third street was on stilts over stagnant 






^jr^StZ. 




SQUARE IN COLON 

Showing Tent of the Merry-go-round 



ACCOMMODATIONS AT COLON 267 

water and inhabited only by negroes, it was impossible 
to get far away from the noises and noisomeness. Be- 
sides, the sea breeze did not blow through the town as 
it blew at the Washington, and the rooms were so hot 
that refreshing sleep was impossible, even when the din 
subsided for a few moments. 

The Washington Hotel was, in fact, the only one 
in which one could live without suffering in health 
from the heat, noises and inconveniences. It was not 
a good hotel, but it had three features that rendered 
it attractive, viz., its name, a bath-house and a sea 
breeze. The reason for the difficulty in obtaining lodg- 
ing was that it belonged to the Panama railway and 
was leased to the manager rent free, with the proviso 
that he was to be ready at all times to take care of 
any of the railroad employees that might be sent there. 
This made it necessary for him to wait until late in the 
day before filling all of his rooms. His foreign di- 
plomacy that repelled the doctors was dictated by 
American business methods. 

While I was waiting, Doctors Frank and Newman 
invited me to camp with them for a few hours or 
days until I could get a bed elsewhere. I accepted, 
and found them located in the same old three-bedded, 
one-sided, breezeless bunking-place in the wing of 
the building, that had driven me away two weeks be- 
fore. It was a sort of room-like receptacle used for 
late comers. The third bed was occupied by a stran- 
ger, and the place was so full of the belongings of 
the three occupants that there was not even space 
for me to sleep on the floor. 



268 BACK 

After piling my things behind the door and under 
the table I went to the combination sitting-room, 
writing-room and barroom. This was about twenty 
feet square and the only place to sit in unless 
we except the barber's den, which was about ten feet 
square, and the hotel office, which was of the same 
size but more than half filled by a large flat desk. The 
hotel conveniences were practically all out-of-doors, 
and every one sat on the lower veranda, where the 
steady sea breeze blew as if from a thousand electric 
fans. The veranda was worth forty parlors and sit- 
ting-rooms, and no one complained. 

I waited patiently until the hotel-keeper had taken 
the indispensable siesta, and was rewarded by getting 
a bed in a double room on the second or upper floor. 
It had a door and window facing the sea to let the 
breeze in, and another door and window on the oppo- 
site side to let the breeze out, and covered verandas 
on both sides. By keeping the windows and doors 
open a veritable gale could be kept blowing through 
the room and over the beds day and night, thus mak- 
ing sleep not only possible, but delightful and refresh- 
ing. It was like being blown into the temperate zone, 
like going home for the night; and I felt that with 
this room and the lower veranda I could remain at 
Colon a month with great benefit to my health, instead 
of daily losing ground as those who were staying at the 
other hotels certainly would. 

Although the bath-house was accessible from the 
ground floor only, we had a shower bath on our floor 
that was very convenient and very popular. Every 




WASHINGTON HOTEL, STREET FRONT, COLON 

Behind the lower sign a short passageway leading 
through to the water front 



ACCOMMODATIONS AT COLON 269 

morning soon after daybreak and every evening be- 
fore retiring, the guests put on bath-robes or over- 
coats, whichever they happened to possess, stole along 
the veranda to the shower room and had a refreshing 
time under the shower. The water which was rain- 
water, was not cold enough to be chilly and could 
be enjoyed for an almost indefinite time, or until one 
was obliged to give place to "next." 

As a roommate I had Doctor Morrow of San Fran- 
cisco, a genial young man of wholesale proportions, 
who had a ready laugh and knew a thing or two 
about bubonic plague, leprosy and other interesting 
curiosities. I was more than satisfied. 

But not so Doctor Frank. The stranger who shared 
the hot air of the one-sided, three-bedded room with 
him and Doctor Newman, was a bachelor and a dude 
who filled the place with toilet articles and perfumes, 
and spent most of his time undressing and dressing. 
His best and most constant, possibly his only, friend 
was the looking-glass. Doctor Frank pointed him 
out to me in the afternoon as he came sauntering 
along the walk in front of the veranda: an immacu- 
lately dressed, red-whiskered, delicate-skinned dandy 
who had polished the hair off the top of his head and 
was proud of the incandescent horseshoe fringe that 
connected his beard with the back of his head. As he 
sauntered along beaming with self-satisfaction and 
shining with bare-headed brightness, we gazed at 
him ; and he seemed to think that we were admiring 
him, and was apparently not displeased. Moral : Be 
vain and you will be happy. — Vanity had at least made 



270 BACK 

something out of him. Those who have no vanity 
live in darkness, undiscovered and unappreciated. 

I did not feel compelled to take siestas here and 
preferred to stroll about along the breezy beach hunting 
shells, or sitting on the veranda smoking and talking 
with Doctors Waite, Senn, Newman, Frank and Mor- 
row, and with others who came to visit us from the 
other camp. 

While we were there the negroes gathered the cocoa- 
nuts and trimmed the cocoa palms that fringed the 
beach. This was a very interesting sight. A bare- 
footed negro would put a hatchet in his belt, catch 
hold of a tree trunk with his hands and rapidly walk 
up the tree just as a man with spikes fastened on 
his ankles walks up a telegraph pole, except that he 
used his bare toes with which to cling to the corru- 
gated bark. A monkey could not have done better, 
nor looked better. The cocoa palm that grows on the 
seashore, although tall, is always slender and some- 
what inclined, and is thus favorable for climbing. Nev- 
ertheless the climber must have the great strength of 
his remote ancestors in his toes, as well as a steady 
head, to climb so high in that way. Upon arriving 
at the top he chops off the branches that bear nuts 
and then trims the tree by removing those that hang 
downward. In less than ten minutes he is down and 
toes up the next tree. When all trees were trimmed, 
the negroes cut off the end of several of the cocoa- 
nuts, drank the milk and threw them into the sea. 
Most of the nuts, however, were left lying around, 
for nobody seemed to want them. 




PATH LEADIx\TG ACROSS THE LAWN FROM 
WASHINGTON HOTEL TO THE BEACH 

Showing One of the Cocoa Palms that Bordered 



/ 



ACCOMMODATIONS AT COLON 271 

What a place this would be for a row of windmills 
to be kept going by this steady Seabreeze! I won- 
dered why I had not seen any windmills in Panama. 
But the negroes did not seem to have much to do but 
gather cocoanuts and drink the milk and be fanned 
by the breezes ; and as windmills can neither gather 
the cocoanuts nor drink the milk they would be quite 
useless and superfluous. Perhaps as the years pass 
on the canal will be finished and the 20,000 laborers 
and the high-salaried employees be discharged and the 
stores that feed, clothe and saloon them be closed; 
and it may then become necessary to work the land 
and develop the industries and build windmills and 
factories. But that time is a long way off. Millions 
of dollars must find their way to Panama, and thou- 
sands of deaths be died while windmills wait. Neither 
windmills nor factories are tropical institutions. 

On Sunday morning Doctor Morrow stumbled audi- 
bly out of bed at five o'clock and went hunting up the 
river. But he came back safe and sound in the after- 
noon, without having gotten anything but plenty of 
exercise and a few pounds of alligator mud upon his 
clothes. Not being deaf, I was wide awake when he 
left, and embraced the opportunity to take an early 
shower bath and thus turned annoyance into pleasure. 
Returning from the bath I witnessed the shower bath 
he was caught in, and wondered if it looked as beauti- 
ful to him in the swamps as it did to me on the covered 
veranda. It was a tremendous, I might say terrific, 
downpour of water. It darkened the heavens and last- 
ed about twenty minutes, administering the greatest 



272 BACK 

Colonic flushing on record. It started suddenly, soon 
after sunrise, and when it began to pass off the sun 
shone through it with great brilliancy, developing a 
heaven full of aurora tints which turned rapidly into 
deep blue and finally brightened into a glorious, cooled- 
off, tropical morning. 



CHAPTER II 

Sunday at Colrfn 

Col6n's Architecture — Trying to Procure Information about 
Ships — The Brighton and the Preston — Had to Give It 
up — The Cab Ride on the Beach — The Canal Zone — Pictur- 
esque Christobal — Cool Breezes — Statue of Columbus — 
The Entrance to the Canal — Railroad Company's Hospital 
—The Turtle Trap— The Bath— The Ladies— The Shark 
— The Retreat — The Embarrassment — Uncertainty about 
the Departure of Boats — Crowding a Small Boat — 
Mistakes and Discomforts — An Unsatisfactory Explana- 
tion — Rozhestzensky — Laying in Private Provisions — 
Off Late — Rough Weather — Bocas del Toro — Almirante 
Bay and Chiriqui Lagoon — Bocas del Drago and Bocas del 
Tigre — Proposed Naval Station — ^The Town and Its 
Doctors — Plenty of Fruit. 

Colon has one piece of architecture, viz., a church, 
a more or less Protestant one, the Church of Eng- 
land. There is nothing else like it in Colon, which is 
a city of saloons, not of churches. It stands alone 
and lonely on the seashore across the street from the 
Washington Hotel annex or wing, and is thus as far 
away from the bad people in the town as possible. 
The congregation is made up largely of Jamaica ne- 
groes, I do not remember seeing any other churches 
in this town, nor any church ruins, although eccle- 
siastically considered, the whole town was a ruin. 

Sunday morning I called at the United Fruit Com- 
18 273 



274 BACK 

pany's agency and learned that the Brighton, a re- 
christened Norwegian steamship with a Norwegian 
crew, and said to be the smallest boat on the route, 
would sail Monday; and that the Preston, a larger 
boat, would arrive Monday and probably sail Tuesday 
or Wednesday according to the amount of unload- 
ing to be done. I went to the wharf and looked at the 
Brighton and gave her up. To be shaken up in her for 
a week, like shot in a bottle, would be almost sure 
death. She had one small room amidships to be 
used as a combination salon, dining-room and smok- 
ing-room, and eight little cabins near the stern, which 
opened into a narrow passageway about thirty feet 
long and three feet wide. The cabins had no place 
for steamer trunks under the berths, and hardly room 
enough for two persons to stand side by side on the 
floor. They were originally intended for the officers 
of the crew, inasmuch as the ship was not built for 
passenger service. The space over them was used 
as a passenger deck, and was about thirty feet by 
fifteen between the life boats, with the center taken 
up by a skylight. As the deck was uncovered and 
unprotected at the sides, there was no place on the 
boat for the passengers to go to in bad weather except 
to bed, or to the little dining-room which was pretty 
well filled by the table. So I returned to the hotel, 
having gained nothing but an appetite. I would have 
to wait for the Preston. 

After the eleven o'clock breakfast Doctors Frank, 
Newman and I sat on the veranda and gazed at the 
sea and smoked and talked small talk, and thus man- 




CHRIST CHURCH AT COLON 
Seen from a Corner of the Hotel 



SUNDAY AT COLON 275 

aged to kill time and keep cool until three o'clock. 
Then we hired a Jamaica negro, with a cab that had 
seen better days, to drive us everywhere, viz., to the 
mouth of the canal and then along the seashore in the 
opposite direction as far as the road went, where we 
were to have a salt-water swim. 

We drove through the main street to the Canal 
Zone at the other end of the town. Here the beach 
curved out seaward to form a projecting area or 
tongue of land shaded by a grove of tall cocoa palms 
which gave it a very picturesque appearance. As we 
entered the grove we saw large and comparatively 
elegant-looking frame houses and a Catholic church, 
all of which Mons. De Lesseps had built, at great ex- 
pense, for himself and his high-salaried officials and 
their employees. The settlement was called Chris- 
tobal, after the discoverer of America, and occupied 
a most charming and salubrious spot. Like the beach 
of the Washington Hotel, it was fanned by the pre- 
vailing winds and, like it, was apparently much more 
breezy and much cooler than the intervening town. 
We drove through the palm grove, past the well- 
preserved houses, to the other side of the little penin- 
sula where the canal opened into Limon Bay. A 
statue of Columbus that had been presented to the 
country by the Empress Eugenie twenty years be- 
fore, stood on a clear plat of ground near the shore 
in the attitude of watching or guarding the boca or 
mouth of the canal. We left the cab and sauntered 
a short distance along the shore of the bay to the 
boca, finding the way strewn with fragments of 



276 BACK 

crockery, tin cans and debris of all kinds, and ob- 
structed by old car trucks and parts of machinery. The 
canal here looked like a river or bayou extending 
through flat, alluvial land. The bay is now a part of 
the open sea, but when the United States has invest- 
ed a few hundred thousand dollars in a breakwater 
it will be converted into a magnificent, protected har- 
bor. 

We returned to the Washington Hotel and had a 
cool, pleasant drive for a couple of miles along the 
shores in the opposite direction. A drive on a tropical 
beach is always a treat. Although the road may not 
be well kept it is usually hard and dry, the sea air 
exhilarating and the luxuriant foliage alluring. We 
passed the Railroad Company's Hospital, a small 
frame building standing on posts over the water's 
edge, which was said to accommodate over one hun- 
dred patients, but did not look that capacious. I was 
told that it was poorly supplied with materials and 
facilities, although this difficulty has, of course, been 
remedied now that Uncle Sam has finally become in- 
terested in tropical hygiene. After seeing the surviv- 
ing evidence of the French sanitary work as shown in 
the Ancon Hospital, the sanitarium on Toboga Island 
and the construction of Christobal, it occurred to me 
that the French had given much attention to sanita- 
tion as it was then understood, and had spent much 
money upon it, while the United States was not even 
providing sufficient medicine. Our legislators were 
waiting for more deaths and the application of the 
big stick before conferring independent authority 




o 

(SI 

S 

X 
o 

O 
< 

•< 

w 

W 
Q 



SUNDAY AT COLON 277 

upon the doctors. The American citizen is intelH- 
gent in all things but health and disease. But he 
makes up in opinion what he lacks in knowledge. It 
is for him to decide when doctors are right and when 
wrong, and which are right and which wrong. 

The road terminated abruptly at the entrance of a 
small shallow bay. Here we alighted and walked a 
few hundred yards along the edge of tangled woods 
to a little palm grove where the shore made an ab- 
rupt turn. About a hundred feet out from the water's 
edge a circular empalement twenty feet in diameter 
had been constructed for catching turtles. Between 
the turtle trap and shore was the bathing place se- 
lected by the negro driver, and as no one was about 
we were soon frolicking in the water. The bottom 
was sandy and the place left nothing to be desired 
as a place to get wet in except a little more water. 
It was waist deep only. We did not venture far be- 
yond the empaling for fear of sharks and because the 
water did not get much deeper, but managed never- 
theless to obtain considerable refreshing exercise and 
enjoyment. 

When we at last started for shore we saw two ladies 
and a gentleman standing in the palm grove with 
their backs toward us and looking up toward the tops 
of the trees. They had evidently been stopped by us 
and did not know what to do or where to look. As 
the road led along the edge of the water they could 
not get by with dignity and we could not get out with 
dignity ; and they did not seem to know that our dress- 
ing quarters were within a few feet of their backs, 
where we could not dress with dignity. 



278 BACK 

Upon looking around to see about moving a little 
farther away from shore in order to allow them to 
pass, we saw a slight commotion of the water and a 
speck of black disappear from the surface. 

"Not that way," said Frank, "I believe that was a 
shark. And the ripples seem nearer." 

We stared at each other as nonchalantly as possi- 
ble, expecting at any moment to lose a leg. 

"Well, which is it, boys," I said, "the ladies or the 
sharks?" 

"The ladies for me," said Frank, who was fat and 
juicy and would have been the first choice of either 
a shark or a lady. 

"I don't care," said Newman, who looked like a 
tough morsel for either of them, and who was lying. 

I said that I would risk the shark. I was born bash- 
ful and couldn't help it. I could bear to be eaten by 
sharks, but I couldn't bear to be looked at by ladies. 
Privately, I knew that sharks were not after dry 
bones, particularly when meat like Doctor Frank was 
to be had. 

Doctor Frank, who preferred being eaten by ladies 
to being looked at by sharks, hurried out and New- 
man, who began to quake, followed him. They were 
not seen by the strangers, nor would I have been had 
I had courage enough to follow them out. They then 
threw my trousers out to me, and began to dress — and 
told me to do likewise. I remained in the water until 
I heard a splash behind me and a cry of "shark" 
from Frank. I hesitated no longer, but screened my- 
self with my trousers and started out of the water. 




MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS, CHRISTOBAL 



SUNDAY AT COLON 279 

The noise also caused the ladies to look around just 
as I was emerging. However, I emerged. I had 
grown brave. So the ladies had to turn around again 
and gaze at the tops of the palm trees. I thought I 
detected a faint smile on their faces, and felt ashamed 
of them. After emerging I learned that Doctor Frank 
had made the splash by throwing a stone. The negro 
cabman said that the first rippling of the water was 
caused by a turtle. Thus does fear make cowards of 
us all. 

When I was no longer in the way to frighten them, 
the ladies, who proved to be old girls with calico com- 
plexions, passed on and went into a little gate that 
was overgrown with vines, and which had not been 
noticed by us. I suppose they lived there, although 
I could see nothing but trees about and beyond the 
gate behind which they disappeared. If they had 
only told us that they would disappear there we would 
have allowed them to pass. 

We drove back along the shore thinking that Colon 
was a poor place for surf bathing on account of the 
sharks and the ladies. 

Monday morning I went to Andrews and Company 
and learned that the Preston had not been heard from, 
but was expected during the day. They were, how- 
ever, uncertain and indifferent as to whether it would 
require a half day, or one or two days to unload what 
was intended for this port. Hence I became panicky out 
of fear that I might lose several days waiting if I did 
not take the little steamship Brighton. Besides, most 
of the Chicago members were going to take it, and 



28o BACK 

I did not relish being left behind by them. Doctor 
Senn, who was a good sailor and had been in some of 
the worst as well as best boats in the world, praised 
its arrangements immoderately and advised us Chi- 
cagoans all to take it and have a nice, cosy, comforta- 
ble time together. We would have plenty of room 
because the crowd would of course wait for the Pres- 
ton. He allowed his enthusiasm to sway him, and 
to prove his sincerity engaged the best room on the 
boat for Doctor Waite, and the second best for him- 
self. Doctor and Mrs. Brower were willing to go 
through yellow flames to get away quickly from yel- 
low fever. They chose the captain's room, which 
was next to the dining-room, so that they would not 
have to walk half of the length of the ship through 
rain and dashing spray to their meals, as the rest of 
us would have to do in bad weather. Doctor Frank 
also was willing to take chances with fire or water, 
so it brought him quickly back to Anglo-Saxon civil- 
ization. Doctor Newman, who came to the congress 
for his health, felt so well and contented that he did 
not care what he did, provided he did it. He only 
cared to be away from home-sick-home and with the 
crowd and, in order to be provided for in any event, 
he went down to the boat, hunted up the Norwegian 
steward and engaged Doctor Waite's room for himself 
and Doctor Frank, not knowing what he did. 

I finally made up my mind to cast my lot with my 
Chicago friends and accept the week's torture on the 
Brighton, trusting to the presence of many doctors 
to keep me alive should I become a sick and helpless 



SUNDAY AT COLON 281 

Stowaway in one of those rudimentary cabins near 
the rudder. I therefore went to the boat again to see 
and fee the Viking steward, who was as stupid as 
responsibiHty and limited authority could make a 
fjordman, and engaged as large a part of a room as 
he would let me have. I had to take a berth in one 
of two rooms that were left, and which were farthest 
back, and hoped that no one else would consent to be 
put back there. But a panic seldom takes one person 
alone, and when we got off every berth was filled and 
all officers turned out of their rooms except the pur- 
ser, who shared his with Doctor Hughes of St. Louis. 
They all tried to get ahead of the crowd, but the crowd 
was too smart for them. 

Doctor Senn and Doctor Waite had not only each 
engaged a separate and entire stateroom of the stew- 
ard on Sunday, but had reported their choice to An- 
drews and Company in order to be sure of them. But 
the steward, who also became panicky at the sight of 
so many doctors and doctors' fees, gave Doctor 
Waite's room to Doctors Newman and Frank, and 
assigned Doctor Waite to Doctor Senn's room — he 
didn't know the difference between a man and wom- 
an, except in Norway. So when Doctor Senn came 
to the boat with his trunks and bags and guns, he 
found the two doctors comfortably settled in Doc- 
tor Waite's room, and one of them going to bed for 
a five-days' nap. Doctor Senn's gun was loaded for 
alligators, but he didn't shoot. It was his custom to 
think twice before shooting at human beings, and 
upon second thought he was in doubt whether to 



282 BACK 

shoot the doctors, the steward or the United Fruit 
Company. Finally he said, "They treat us as if we 
were a load of bananas. I will go to the office and 
find out about it." 

Upon arriving at the office he walked to the clerk's 
window and said abruptly: 

"Do I look like a banana?" 

The clerk raised his iron-dyed head, peered over 
his spectacles in a deliberate way and looked at Doc- 
tor Senn's yellowish hunting coat and well-rounded 
figure. 

"Well, I hadn't noticed it. Fm a bit short sighted." 

"I thought so," said the doctor. "Did I not apply 
for a stateroom for Doctor Waite and another one 
for myself, and did you not take the money for them ?" 

"I dare say you did, sir, and that I did. I always 
do that. The steward does the rest." 

"Then why did you not tell me that the steward 
transacts your business?" 

"You didn't ask me, sir. I gave your names to the 
steward." 

"As a sort of vocal invoice, I suppose. But Doctor 
Waite was put in my room and that put me out." 

"And without your having any voice in the matter, 
I suppose. But don't be put out about it, doctor. It 
was all a mistake. The steward had your names for 
the rooms, but he probably thought that the words, 
'for Doctor Waite,' meant 'wait for doctor.' Funny 
mistake, wasn't it? He waited, and gave it to the 
first doctor. Doctor Waite waited too long, you know." 

The clerk was kept in a cage, like a bank teller, 



SUNDAY AT COLON 283 

and knew that he was safe, for Doctor Senn had not 
brought his gun and had no training in profanity, 
and was thus at a disadvantage. He finally recovered 
sufficiently to say: 

"Why don't you have a time for the arrival and 
departure of your boats?" 

"Because we can't make time wait upon their ar- 
rival and departure." 

"But you could place the time for departure so far 
in the future that they could start on time even when 
they were behind time. Then all there would be to do 
would be not to be ahead of time — and one could be 
on hand on time." 

"On time? Ahead of time? Time in Panama? 
You're joking, you know, and don't know it. You 
Americans can undoubtedly attend to your own busi- 
ness, and ought to, but you can't do business here." 

"Yes," said Doctor Senn, "I have found that out. 
I suppose I must talk to the steward. Perhaps I can 
make him understand that I am not a banana." 

"Yes, doctor, talk to the steward. Perhaps he'll 
understand." 

Whereupon the clerk's thin lips closed like a clam 
shell, and he would neither talk back nor come out 
of his cage and fight; and Doctor Senn turned away 
murmuring that it was a sad thing that old heads 
could not be put on young shoulders, but it was much 
sadder when they could not be put on old shoulders. 

Thus the organizer of the cosy little sea-party was 
an outcast. It was left for me to take pity on him and 
share my covey hole with him. He was grateful to 
have a place to lay his head. 



284 BACK 

However, after much to and fro running around 
and about the stupid steward, like ants about a lump 
of sugar, we all succeeded in our one desire, viz., in 
becoming stowaways in a little tub that was to be 
delivered to the mercy of the deep, and take great 
chances, like Rozhestzensky's sacrificed fleet. I could 
not but feel that we had about the same kind of start- 
ing out chances as had the unpronounceable admiral 
with thirteen letters in his name, who should have left 
authority for others to exercise and mistakes for oth- 
ers to carry out, like Andrews and Company of United 
Fruit Company fame. Then he would not have been 
sent to a certain death at sea, and be sentenced to an 
uncertain death on land for having been sent to sea. 

When we were nearly ready to start, I met the 
captain and asked him if he had plenty of mineral 
water, wine, beer, Scotch whiskey and stomach bit- 
ters on hand, for there were many Chicago doctors 
aboard. He said he believed he had none of these in 
his medicine chest, for he had not expected to have 
more than a passenger or two, and the crew was quite 
healthy and did not require any medicines. I then 
sought Doctor Senn, our party leader, and told him 
of the fate that threatened the ship. He was speechless 
for a moment but rallied quickly and said : 

"We must have these things. Let us go and buy 
some. Let us go immediately. One can live longer 
without food than without drink." 

So we hunted up a wholesale grocery and liquor 
store, and each bought a bottle of sherry, a bottle of 
Black and White and half a dozen bottles of claret. 



SUNDAY AT COLON 285 

We met the captain in the store also buying MEDI- 
CINES. But we were afterward more pleased that we 
had put iji our own stock, for there are two kinds of 
ship wine, one good enough to go dow n, the other good 
enough to come up. He had bought what he consid- 
ered good enough to come up. 

We finally cast loose at noon, one hour late, and 
did not get our eleven o'clock breakfast until half 
past two. To wait until half past two, after having 
trotted about almost constantly since seven, on a cup 
of coffee and a roll, perspiring profusely and worrying 
intensely for fear we might not get stowed away at 
all, and then suffering a shock at the sudden discov- 
ery at the last moment of the neglected state of the 
commissary department of the ship, was an appro- 
priate initiation to what was in store for us. There 
were about eighteen of us to be fed by a steward who 
was not accustomed to serve more than one or two 
who usually served themselves ; and the question was, 
how many of us would get anything at all ? The ladies 
were undoubtedly "in for it," in more ways than one. 
No boudoir comforts, hair dressers, manicures and 
ladies' maids for them. 

We all, however, got our breakfast down in time 
to have it churned by the trade-wind, which was in 
the ship's quarter and which played with our little 
boat like a gentle, purring cat with a captive mouse. 
Doctor Senn and I carried iced sherry to the ladies 
who began to say, "Oh my !" and "Oh dear !" and 
"Goodness ! I wish I were home," "I'm so sick," etc. 

Pretty soon I began to sympathize with them and 



,^ 



286 BACK 

took a taste of the sherry myself, and lay down on my 
steamer chair and left the ladies to the care of Doc- 
tor Senn. 

At six o'clock most of the gentlemen tasted of the 
dinner, and most of the ladies didn't. But we all got 
to bed early and without any discoverable mishaps, 
consoled by the knowledge that soon after daybreak 
we would be in the sheltered waters of Bocas del 
Toro. Our little bunks had boards, plain boards, for 
springs, with thick comforters for mattresses and 
straw bags for pillows — genuine sailor luxuries. But 
we were glad to stay in them and on them. I won- 
dered how it must seem to a person who had become 
accustomed to such a bed by years of service, to put 
up at a first-class hotel. I suppose that he would feel 
insecure and would wake up every few minutes in the 
night with a sensation of falling through space, and 
would have to feel of the soft mattress to be sure 
that something solid was under him. 

In the morning the sea was quite rough, but I 
managed to get on deck just as we steamed trium- 
phantly between the foamy reefs into the tranquil 
bay. Beautiful Bocas del Toro! Welcome Almirante 
Bay! Islas Tropic ales! Haven and heaven of the 
seasick and suffering! 

The large bay was enclosed by luxuriant tropical 
islands with their white fringes of foamy reefs, and 
the town looked bright and beautiful beneath the 
tropical sun and deep blue sky. Numerous little 
naphtha launches darted about in all directions giv- 
ing a sense of festivity to the scene. At last we had 



SUNDAY AT COLON 287 

found something worth coming to see. The tropics 
were out in all their splendor, and we forgot the other 
things. Had we taken the Preston we should not 
have seen Bocas del Toro, for her loading place was 
Port Limon, which I did not care to see again. Limon 
had fine piers, a beautiful garden and a new hospital, 
a trinity of artificial attractions whose origin and 
pedigree went back to bananas, but here were the 
beauties of Nature as they came from the hand of their 
creator. 

Bocas del Toro is the chief seaport town of Pana- 
ma after Colon and the City of Panama, if not before, 
and is the center of the banana shipping business of 
the republic. It is situated in the Almirante Bay, 
which is the northern end of the Chiriqui Lagoon, 
but is completely separated from the main lagoon by 
islands and reefs between which small boats only can 
pass. The channel leading into the bay is called Bocas 
del Tigre (Tiger's Mouths), and the channel into the 
main lagoon, fifteen miles farther south, is called 
Bocas del Drago (Dragon's Mouths), appropriate 
names for these wild and dangerous passages as we 
were soon to learn by experience. The lagoon be- 
tween these passages is shut off from the sea by a 
row of islands and reefs placed closely together and 
surrounded and connected with breakers that reveal 
the hidden rocks and shallows. Beyond and south of 
these reefs and Bocas, the lagoon extends into the 
mainland, forming a body of water forty-five miles 
long by fifteen wide. It is a magnificent bay and is, 
I believe, to have a U. S. naval station, for which it is 
an ideal location. 



288 BACK 

Bocas del Toro is nearly two miles from the en- 
trance of the bay on the narrow end of an inner coral 
island four miles wide by nine miles long. Although 
it appeared to us to be situated on the main land, a 
ride around the point of the island revealed miles of 
water behind it. The town had the usual shape of 
the tropical coast towns in Central America, viz., a 
narrow strip of houses extending for about a mile 
along the thickly wooded shore. There was no need 
of piers here for the bananas were brought in launches 
from the Chanquinola River, which ran through the 
company's plantation, and were loaded directly on the 
ships. On account of the protection afforded by the 
islands and the consequent tranquillity of the water 
in the bay, this presented no more difficulty than 
loading from a pier and meant one less handling. It 
was the plying back and forth of these launches that 
gave the animated appearance we noted when we ar- 
rived and made the place look at first glance like a 
fashionable watering place with many pleasure boats. 

The company sent out a launch and took us ashore, 
landing us on a little platform near their office build- 
ing and warehouses. This narrow end of the island, 
all but the main street, is under water at high tide 
and out of water at low tide, the difference between 
high and low tide being twenty-three inches. When 
we landed it was low tide. Excepting on the main 
street, the sidewalks and street crossings were built 
two feet above the ground, and in the slimy side 
streets we saw innumerable crab holes about which 
little sea crabs were crawling so thickly that one 




COMBINATION STORE AND RESIDENCE AT 
BOCAS DEL TORO 



SUNDAY AT COLON 289 

could not have put a foot on the ground without step- 
ping on two or three of them. They easily had the 
right of way except on the raised sidewalks. The 
main street, which was next to the sea, was high and 
dry however, and had no elevated sidewalks crossing 
it like the others, and thus was adapted to the passage 
of vehicles. But I saw neither donkey nor cart and 
concluded that the highness and dryness of the main 
street was a luxury rather than a necessity. 

Dr. R. E. Swigart, a young man from Tiffin, Ohio, 
who had been located here for several years, told us 
that the overflowing of the tide was a benefit to the 
town. The salt-water at high tide disinfected and 
washed away the filth of the negroes who threw their 
dirt and garbage anywhere and everywhere, and 
would have rendered the place unsanitary in a short 
time. He said that they could not be made cleanly in 
their habits. The authorities had planned to fill in 
the whole marshy part of the town to a level above 
high water, and to cut a channel across the narrow 
end of the island occupied by the town, and thus 
drain the ground. The place was, however, very 
healthy as it was, for there was but little sickness ex- 
cepting malaria, and the doctor thought that, when 
filled in, the place would become dirty and unhealthy, 
notwithstanding the drainage. He said that they 
neither had yellow fever nor typhoid fever. 

The town itself is small, having only about 1,000 
inhabitants, but there are 30,000 people in the sur- 
rounding country for whom it is the center of sup- 
plies. The United Fruit Company's warehouses are 

19 



29© BACK 

capable of supplying a large population with general 
merchandise, but quite a large proportion of the 
houses are small groceries and fruit stores and provide 
the people with ordinary comestibles. 

The sea breeze enabled us, without great discom- 
fort, to walk the entire length of the town and a short 
distance beyond along the beach at the edge of a dense 
forest, where all that was lacking were a few mon- 
keys in the trees to transport us into the real, complete 
tropics of our juvenile books of travel. On our way 
back we bought the largest size ripe pineapples for 
ten cents each, and oranges and limes for almost noth- 
ing. Doctor Brower, who did not believe in being 
seasick on an empty stomach, bought a dozen pineap- 
ples, so that he could be seasick all he wanted to. 

The other two local physicians (besides Doctor 
Swigart) were Dr. R. H. Wilson from Sterling, Mo., 
and Doctor Osterhout from Texas. The latter, a 
graduate of Jefferson, had been in Central America 
since 1888, and in Bocas del Toro since 1895. He 
had charge of the Marine Hospital. The doctors de- 
voted their whole time to our entertainment and or- 
ganized two of the most delightful and unique ex- 
cursions that we had yet taken, affording new experi- 
ences to all of us. 

The Fruit Company returned us aboard the Brigh- 
ton with two dozen pineapples (one dozen for Doctor 
Brower and one dozen for other members of the par- 
ty), several dozen fresh juicy oranges and many limes. 
The oranges we get in Chicago taste like chips in com- 
parison with these juicy ones, ripened on the trees 
and eaten soon after being picked. 



SUNDAY AT COLON 291 

We found breakfast ready on the ship and, being 
hungry as the result of our exercise, v/e appHed our- 
selves to it with all of our energies and dispatched it 
with the celerity and success of true sailors, filling up 
with solid food and packing it down with juicy fruit. 



CHAPTER III 

After Bananas and Alligators 

A Rough Ride — Wild Scenery along the Reefs — A Devoted 
Wife — A Recommendation for the Prevention of Divorces 
— A Guide with the Sleeping Sickness — An Exhilarating 
Ride on a Platform Car — The Big Banana Plantation — 
About Bananas and Plantains — Jamaica Negroes as Labor- 
ers — Beautiful Scenery — The Great Ambuscade of the 
Little Revolution — Loading at Night — On a Reef all 
Night — Danger, Modern and Ancient — Saved by Acci- 
dent Insurance — Return to Almirante Bay — The Hunt 
Organized — An Excursion to the Chanquinola River 
through the Canal — A Twelve-mile Plantation — Tropical 
Birds — The Toucan, the Greatest of Degenerates — 
Scratching the Alligator's Back — ^The Reason why I Am 
not an Alligator Hunter — How the Trip to the Tropics 
Was Saved from Being a Failure — Work in the North 
and Loafing in the Tropics — Canal Officials and Soldiers. 

The S. S. Brighton had to go into the Chiriqui 
Lagoon to gather fruit from two large banana plan- 
tations, and then return to Bocas del Toro to complete 
its load, thus making an excursion which promised us 
not a little entertainment. As our ship was too large 
to pass through the small channels between the 
islands that separated Almirante Bay from the main 
lagoon, it would have to enter through Bocas del 
Tigre and thus be four hours on the way, three of 
them in the open sea. 

292 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 293 

We started a little before noon taking with us Doc- 
tors Swigart and Osterhout, who did not hesitate to go, 
although they knew that we were to return by night 
and that there were no vacant bunks in the ship. Mr. 
Reid, a civil engineer who had to make a business trip 
into the interior, and his wife, who had to see him 
off, were acquainted with one of the members of our 
party, and added to our entertainment by engaging 
passage in our boat. They had lived long in the land 
of the banana, and thus knew everything we wished 
to know. Doctor Osterhout took his telescope and de- 
lighted himself and us with excellent views of the 
islands and breakers which were never out of sight. 
Although he had lived in the neighborhood ten years, 
he seemed even more enthusiastic over the scenery 
than we were. At least he was enthusiastic until we 
got into the open sea, when he suddenly lost interest; 
he said that the sea air always made him sleepy, and 
forthwith rolled himself up in a blanket and lay on 
a bench with his back toward us, and stayed there 
until we had passed through the Tiger's Mouths into 
the quiet waters of the lagoon. 

It was a pretty sight to steam along in full view 
of the islands thickly covered with tropical trees and 
bordered by submerged reefs which converted the 
sea for half a mile out into curling and splashing 
foam. In places the waves struck the abrupt shores 
and leaped twenty or thirty feet into the air to descend 
in snowy showers. The telescope brought the shore 
quite near and enabled us to realize the intensity, ac- 
tivity and grandeur of the perpetual dashing, reced- 



294 BAGK 

ing, returning and shattering of the waves on the 
shore, and the immensity of the fields of seething 
foam. This wild island scenery was entirely different 
from the peaceful color crowded views that we had 
enjoyed on our little excursion along the islands of 
Panama Bay to Toboga. One afforded a peaceful, 
sensuous sort of enjoyment; the other filled us with 
wonder and admiration. 

After having been out in the open sea for a short 
time, the ladies became uncomfortably quiet, and like- 
wise Doctor Frank, who could always be relied upon. 
The rest of us found it helpful from time to time to 
gaze steadfastly at the sky, like saints in Madonna 
pictures ; or shut our eyes like opossums in trouble ; or 
lean back and draw deep breaths, like prize fighters in 
distress ; or talk ourselves into a state of tolerance 
to woe, like stoics in books, in order to pull through. 
But we managed, nevertheless, to derive some benefit 
from the fifteen miles of continuous animated pan- 
orama, and at last arrived at Bocas del Tigre. We 
entered the lagoon and, presto, wind and waves and 
woes were gone, and we were alive and well again, 
including Doctor Osterhout Mrs. Reid had been, as 
was her custom, very sick, yet she had insisted upon 
accompanying her husband as far as the boat went. 
She had deliberately chosen, even against his wishes, 
to undergo several hours of sickness in order to 
spend them with him. Surely the mind of woman is 
inscrutable, and her ways are beyond the ways of 
men. Praised be her courage and devotion and cheer- 
fulness. Woman was made to set man a good exam- 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 295 

pie, although man was not made to follow it. Men 
are apt to remember Eve as she was, and forget wom- 
an as she is. Possibly the comparative isolation of a 
life in a foreign country where there was neither so- 
cial nor public entertainment, but an abundance of 
hardship and inconvenience, had drawn them closer 
together than the average husband and wife. In any 
case I would suggest a residence in some half-civil- 
ized foreign land by those who, after having been mar- 
ried a few years, imagine they deserve a divorce. If 
such a residence were made a legal qualification for 
a divorce, happy marriages might be more common 
and our courts less crowded. 

Mr. Reid and Doctor Swigart spared no pains to 
entertain us; but after we had entered the lagoon 
Doctor Osterhout outdid them, and thus atoned for 
having gone to sleep in our forlorn company. He had 
found some one to entertain, and was not to be de- 
prived of the opportunity. He was a type of our gen- 
ial and hospitable Southerner, and gave us more in- 
teresting information about plantations, bananas, ne- 
groes and internecine wars than if he had been a guide 
paid to tell us all that there was and was not. 

The little settlement at which we stopped presented 
much of the varied charm and beauty which had char- 
acterized all of the tropical seaport towns I had so 
far seen. The company had built a pier about one 
hundred yards long upon which the narrow-gauge 
platform cars were brought to be unloaded directly 
into the ship. 

Doctor Swigart persuaded the company to put a 



296 BACK 

platform car at our disposal for a ride over the eight 
miles of railroad that traversed the plantation of 800 
acres. Chairs were placed upon the car, an engine 
attached behind, and away we sped at the rate of 
twenty miles an hour through a sort of artificial lane 
that had been cut through the forest jungle, and 
which, by the encroachment of the foliage, had become 
so narrow that the branches projecting from the 
sides often touched us. We went around curves at 
such a speed that each one had to hold on to the chair 
of his neighbor in order that those sitting at the sides 
might not be tipped off. Occasionally we would pass 
an opening and get a better view of the high forest 
trees, among which were rubber trees, cedar trees, 
trumpet trees and other magnificent-looking trees and 
plants that were beyond even Doctor Osterhout's 
elastic nomenclature. At one large meadowlike open- 
ing we saw a herd of sturdy-looking cattle grazing 
peacefully in a meadow upon which a picturesque lit- 
tle slaughter-house had been built for their conven- 
ience. The company did its own slaughtering and 
thus provided their employees with good fresh meat. 
After riding for a couple of miles we came to the 
banana trees, which also grew close up to the rails. 
Every few hundred yards side-tracks ran out at either 
side enabling the laborers to load directly on the cars 
and sent the fruit out on the piers to the steamships. 
As the temperature is practically the same all the 
year around, banana trees are planted at any and all 
seasons and each tree bears twice a year. They do 
not, however, bear according to the season of the 




A BUNCH OF BANANAS 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 297 

year, but according to their individual maturity. Slips 
are planted at any time, and begin to bear in a year, 
and thus bananas are maturing and being gathered 
at all seasons. When a stock is cut off a new one 
grows out in its place. The ripe bunches grow wrong 
side up, for when they become heavy the stem 
bends until at last the end points downward and the 
individual bananas upward. They are gathered be- 
fore they are fully grown, otherwise they burst upon 
ripening and spoil quickly. The yellow ones are cul- 
tivated almost to the exclusion of the red ones, which 
have less flavor (although perhaps a more delicate 
one) and have, I believe, poorer keeping qualities. 

Doctor Osterhout bribed a negro to find a couple of 
bunches of plantains to be cooked for us on the ship. 
The plantain resembles the yellow banana but is near- 
ly twice as long and is not palatable until cooked. 
When ripe it may either be roasted in the rind or be 
cut in slices and fried. It has not such a rich fruity 
flavor as the banana, but is very nourishing and makes 
a better dish for the table. Those served on the boat 
were fried and had a slightly tart taste, and were very 
acceptable as a substitute for fresh vegetables. 

The plantations are worked by Jamaica negroes, 
who are hardier and better laborers than the natives 
and are said to be good-natured, docile and content. 
They gathered in crowds to see us pass, for some one 
had told them that the governor of Jamaica was one 
of our party, and Doctor Senn was designated as the 
man. The doctor bore the honor with becoming dig- 
nity and left them with the impression that he was 



298 BACK 

genuine. They showed great respect toward him 
and were evidently loyal British subjects. 

We soon rode into a wide valley along which the 
plantation extended for miles. A lively river ran 
through it and steep hills arose on either side becom- 
ing progressively higher and more rugged, A succes- 
sion of beautiful and varying views of mountain, for- 
est and river scenery was thus presented to us as we 
rushed around the curves in an almost constant state 
of exhilaration for fear of being swung off into the 
bushes and having our faces scratched. 

We stopped at the spot where, during the recent 
revolution, the insurgents had ambushed the govern- 
ment troops. The insurgents, 1,000 in number, stood 
on the steep side of a round hill near the railroad 
track where the train bearing the regulars had to 
pass. But the foliage on the hill was so dense that 
not an insurgent or field-piece could be seen from the 
cars, nor did it look as if there was room for field- 
pieces between the trees. When, however, the train 
arrived nearly opposite the rebels, they opened fire 
with gun and cannon, killing the helpless troops in 
great numbers. The vivid conception of this horrible 
tragedy, occurring so recently on the very spot we 
halted that I looked about me for blood stains, inter- 
fered somewhat with the full enjoyment of the scen- 
ery. 

When we returned, the ship proceeded to the other 
landing not far away to take on bananas in the dark 
and start back for Bocas del Toro in time to be there 
at daybreak. The success of this plan would have 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 299 

saved us three hours of distress, for we would have 
been asleep during the passage through the choppy 
sea outside of the reefs. But neither sleep nor a night 
ride was granted us by destiny. 

As it was raining, I retired early and fell asleep 
about the time the loading in the lagoon was finished, 
expecting to awake at Bocas del Toro in Almirante 
Bay. About midnight, however, I was awakened 
by the noise of the machinery. The screw would start 
up with a terrific noise, then stop for a few moments 
and begin again. I soon became aware of the fact 
that the ship was not moving forward, but only shak- 
ing itself like a dog emerging from the water. But 
why it should want to stay there and shake itself all 
night and churn us up in its vitals, I could not divine, 
and lay hoping that it would quiet down or go ahead 
before bursting something. 

At seven o'clock we began to move at last, and I 
went on deck and learned the truth, viz., that the negro 
pilot had attempted to find his way out through the 
channel and, as the night was dark and rainy, had 
run the boat on a reef. There was no lighthouse to 
mark the channel, but he, like Admiral Rozhestzen- 
sky, had his orders to go and come, and like 
Rozh — nsky, he had to try his luck. If the reef had 
not been planed off by Providence and sunk just to 
the right depth to let us get on and off easily, and 
had not the wind and waves been kept down, the sec- 
ond-hand ship would have been wrecked and our 
steamer trunks lost. But the above-mentioned com- 
bination of circumstances had conspired in our favor. 



300 BACK 

a combination, take it all in all, the like of which we 
shall never see again. As it was, the boat must have 
suffered considerable damage and might not have been 
able to live in the West Indian storm that was wait- 
ing for it — and us. 

However, I took the matter coolly during the time 
of danger, and also afterward when I learned that 
there had been danger, for I was a student of statis- 
tics and knew that men are ten times as safe on a ship 
as on land and that more accidents occur to people 
in their homes than while riding on the cars. Bankers 
suffer twice as many accidents as policemen, and car- 
penters nine times as many. Railroad conductors are 
considered good risks by the accident insurance com- 
panies, and commercial travelers the very best. In 
fact, statistics prove that there is danger everywhere. 
There is danger in crossing a street, danger in open- 
ing a window and in shutting a door, danger in bath- 
ing and danger in taking off a coat. There is even 
danger in sleeping, for many accidents take place 
during sleep, and most people die in bed. 

I felt thankful that we were not living in the times 
of ancient Rome where danger and death were the 
rule, and survival was accidental, if we may credit 
an account of the conditions once prevalent there 
given by one evidently who knew what he was writ- 
ing about. 

"Owing to the great noise in the streets, none but 
the rich could sleep, while most invalids died from 
want of rest and well people from suicide or acci- 
dents. A stream of carriages was continually passing 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 301 

in the narrow and crooked thoroughfares, and the 
drivers were perpetually engaged in noisy disputes 
and foul abuse of one another. If you were in haste, 
your passage was obstructed by the crowd. If you 
loitered, a rich man's litter, borne aloft on stout shoul- 
ders, jostled you aside; those behind pressed upon 
your back; one man would dig into you with his el- 
bow ; another with a sharp pole ; your shoulder would 
be struck by a joist, your head by a beam, and a cask 
would bark your shins. Your legs were bespattered 
with mud, on all sides you were trodden on, and the 
nail of a soldier's boot would stick in your toe. The 
cooks scattered the burning coals as they hurried by 
with their patrons' meals, and your clothing was torn 
into shreds. One wagon loaded with a fir tree, an- 
other with a huge pine, shook the streets as they ad- 
vanced, the rear ends waving to and fro, felling the 
people right and left. Another wagon was loaded 
with stones from the quarries of the Apenines, and 
when the axle broke the mass was precipitated on 
the people. Who could find his scattered limbs or 
gather up his carcass thus ground to powder? Then 
there were the dangers of the night when broken 
crockery, thrown out of lofty windows, made dents 
in pavements and skulls. Indeed, there were as many 
fates awaiting you as windows where you passed. 
You might thank your lucky stars when they threw 
only the contents of the basins and pots upon you. 
Rash was he who went to supper without first making 
out his will. Or your life was put in jeopardy by 
some drunken and ill-tempered fellow who picked a 



302 BACK 

quarrel with every first person he met. He took care 
to avoid the scarlet cloak and the long train of at- 
tendants, the many lights and the brazen lamp, but 
you whom the moon alone attended he assassinated. 
Or you met a worse fate if you fell into the hands of 
the soldiers, driven by a mob and legging it about 
the streets, and who would crack your head as if 
they were cracking a joke, and thus revenge them- 
selves on the pursuing mob." 

Thus in ancient Rome they needed insurance and 
only had assurance, while nowadays we have insur- 
ance but only need assurance. In modern life danger 
is minimized and insurance magnified. I was quite 
heavily insured against accident, and my observation 
and experience had been that the heavier the insurance 
the slighter the danger, and the slighter the danger, the 
heavier the insurance. This is the policy of the com- 
panies. The only difficulty about insurance is to get 
enough to entirely avert danger. It is a subject for 
statistics. Statistics never He to insurance companies, 
for they have policy holders to make good and an ad- 
vertisement system to make policy holders. 

Those who did not carry much insurance were con- 
siderably frightened, particularly after the danger was 
over and they learned of it, and even to this day they 
talk with bulging eyes of the might-have-been disaster. 
Accident insurance, therefore, should be carried for the 
comfort it aff^ords both before and after the dangers 
are past, as a remedy for nervousness. You go into 
danger with a prospect of making your family the 
present of a snug little sum of money, and are thus 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 303 

braver and more cheerful; that is, if you are a mar- 
ried man. A bachelor may be brave, but death for 
him has no cheerful side. He has to depend upon 
life. 

Mrs. Reid, in trying to spend more time with her 
husband, was fortunate enough to be left behind. She 
thus would have two or three more happy days with 
him before the next ship would come for bananas, and 
she would then return at night according to the reg- 
ular custom. She would, of course, have to take her 
chances with the reefs if the night should happen to 
be dark; but who would hesitate to choose between 
a slight death risk at night and certain deathly sick- 
ness by day? I think it quite likely that her husband 
did not allow her to risk the passage of the Tiger's 
Mouths in such a night. 

We bore up pretty well during the trying three 
hours at sea, all but Doctor Frank and the ladies. 
Doctor Osterhout was again taken with one of his 
drowsy, unsociable spells soon after we got out in 
the open sea; he lay down on the bench and covered 
his head, as usual, and was not heard from again un- 
til we entered the tranquil waters of Almirante Bay 
just in time for the eleven o'clock breakfast. He 
seemed to have the faculty of awakening whenever 
he wanted to eat or talk. 

Doctor Senn had been hinting enthusiastically about 
an alligator hunt, so the local doctors organized an ex- 
cursion up the Chanquinola River, which ran through 
the company's plantation. The plantation, according 
to Doctor Osterhout's information, contained 1,000 



304 BACK 

acres of land and was twelve miles long; but he did 
not say how wide that would make it. The reader 
can easily figure out the width for himself, or if he 
can not, let him get one of his boys or girls who is 
going to school do it for him — they are fresh in math- 
ematics. The river is about 1,200 feet wide and quite 
deep, but as its mouth is completely closed to naviga- 
tion by reefs, the company had dug a channel about 
twenty feet wide and eight miles long connecting it 
with Almirante Bay. 

A steam launch having been placed at our disposal, 
we steamed across the bay to the mainland, which was 
several miles from Bocas del Toro, entered the con- 
necting channel, and were soon gliding through the 
jungle. On our left the forest came to the water's 
edge ; on the right a narrow pathway had been cleared 
for pedestrians. Without this cleared way pedestrians 
would not have been able to reach the different sta- 
tions along the canal. A fine rain was falling a large 
part of the time, but Doctor Senn and Doctor Oster- 
hout sat upon the awning with their legs dangling 
down over the edge, shooting birds and looking for 
alligators. The rest of us sat or stood comfortably 
under the awning and, thus protected, enjoyed the 
novel scenery. The most interesting part was watch- 
ing the tropical birds of many sizes, shapes and colors 
that flew incessantly from one part of the impenetra- 
ble wilderness across our path to settle down in an- 
other, some remaining on the trees where we could get 
a better view of them as we passed, others disappear- 
ing in the jungle as suddenly as they had appeared. 




TOUCAN, OR PREACHER BIRD 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 305 

We saw cockatoos, parrots, toucans and a great varie- 
ty of small birds, which, taken together, might be 
said to be almost as numerous as sparrows about our 
Northern houses and gardens. Although Doctor 
Senn killed a large number of them as they flew by, 
we could seldom get one because they fell into the 
tangle of the dense underbrush. 

The most common of the larger birds was the tou- 
can, the most extraordinary degenerate in the whole 
animal kingdom, not even excepting man. It has a 
nose as long as its body. Pluck out its feathers and 
you can not tell which is the degenerate part, the 
enormously developed, six-inch bill or the compara- 
tively puny, six-inch body. The bill is certainly the 
best developed of the two and capable of giving the 
body the best possible chance of gathering food and 
surviving where other species might die out. Perhaps 
this adaptability for feeding itself accounted for the 
great number we saw in comparison with the smaller 
number of others of any one kind. But how the bird 
manages to escape indigestion is certainly a mystery. 
One mouthful ought to replete it beyond recovery. 
The color of the bill is a softly blended mixture of 
red, yellow, blue and green, and the body a gaudy 
combination of the same. The bird is called by the 
natives the "preacher bird" because it owes its rep- 
utation to the development of its mouth; and one va- 
riety has a black body like a preacher. But I myself 
would have called it the "fashion bird" because it re- 
sembles a woman of fashion ; for it attracts attention 
from a distance by the enormity of its headgear, and 
20 



3o6 BACK 

when the body arrives you are confronted with a bunch 
of beautiful frills and feathers, a "thing of beauty and 
a joy forever." 

But Doctor Senn was out for alligators, for some- 
thing that could not fly away and get lost in the jun- 
gle after it was killed, and he would have sat on the 
sharp edge of the awning with his feet in midair for 
a week rather than miss the big game. He did thus 
sit for four hours, and was finally rewarded. After 
traversing eight miles of wilderness, we came to the 
river and steamed upstream a few miles, enjoying 
extended views of hill and valley ; and on our way back 
spied the alligator. He was lying on his stomach 
basking in the sun, which had come out after the rain 
and which was drying off his back and Doctor Senn's 
legs. He looked immense, sprawled out at the water's 
edge in an attitude of the greatest reptilian comfort 
and content, as if seeming to say, "You scratch my 
back and I'll scratch yours." Doctor Senn took in 
the situation and scratched his back. 

As we were several hundred feet away, it was im- 
possible to say just where the bullet struck. The alli- 
gator knew, however, and was satisfied with one 
scratch, for he flopped into the water and disappeared 
as if he had been shot and we left him for dead. It 
occurred to me that there were three things an alli- 
gator hunter has to contend with, viz., first, to find 
his game ; next, to kill it, and, last, to get it. But for 
these difficulties I might enjoy alligator hunting my- 
self. 

As we glided back late in the afternoon through the 



AFTER BANANAS AND ALLIGATORS 307 

still waters of the artificial forest channel, closely 
hemmed in on either side by the mysterious solitude 
of omnipotent Nature, and which was now silent and 
strewn with the dead reminders of Doctor Senn's fell 
ambition, it seemed to me that these two excursions 
to the banana plantations would have saved my trip 
to the tropics from failure even if the congress had 
not served as the fulfillment of a joyous scientific duty. 
Nothing else had come up to my expectations, except 
bad weather, seasickness and the $25,000 barrel. Now 
I had had my reward and felt that traveling in the 
tropics surpassed all other travel in the world — some- 
times for good and sometimes for bad. Staying at 
home is the only thing that beats it in either respect. 
Any fool can travel in the tropics but it takes a wise 
man, or a poor man, to stay at home. Blessed are the 
wise, and the poor. 

However, there have been wise men who went to 
Panama ; but they came back again. Work was made 
for the white man in the North and probably for the 
negro in the temperate South, but no work was in- 
tended to be done by any one in tropical regions, un- 
less he goes up on a high mountain to do it. The 
Northerner, by centuries of practice, has acquired im- 
munity from the bad effects of work in temperate cli- 
mates, but this immunity soon wears out when he goes 
to the tropics, just as the immunity from the bad ef- 
fects of loafing wears off when the native of the trop- 
ics comes North, The bad effects of work are en- 
demic in the tropics and are only kept from becoming 
epidemic by the small amount of work done, I hope 



3o8 BACK 

that the new canal officials and engineers will be sol- 
diers and will, like our army officers already stationed 
at Panama, prove an exception to human nature and 
will become immune to the laws of human nature and 
do some work on the ground, and that they will live 
long enough.* 

*The above was written before the president undertook to construct the 
canal through the agency of army officers and thus removes all doubt about 
the wisdom of his course. The work is now being done for the benefit of 
the United States instead of for the benefit of engineers and contractors. 
The adoption of this course was a happy thought of a great administration. 



CHAPTER IV 

From Bad to Worse 

Out of Provisions — Shopping for Wet Goods in the Dark — 
Mud and Rain — Artistic Imitation of Jamaica Cigars — 
Smoking for Fair Weather — A Stoic Doctor — Ingratitude 
— A Model Roommate — A $1,200 Bill for False Labels — 
Spoiling a Good Article with a Poor Price — Prepared to 
Fast — The Greatest Mathematician and Gravest Phi- 
losopher of Modern Times — Rough Weather — A Ladies' 
Man — In Protected Waters — All on Deck — A Sudden 
Arrival — An Unsuccessful Attempt — A Rolling Ship 
Gathers no Stoics — A Charge on a Steamer Chair — Wash- 
ing the Deck with White Rock Water — Female Sym- 
pathy — A Dispute between Two Old Friends — A Broken 
Chair — A Retreat — An Immune from Seasickness — 
Rough Again — The Breakfast Habit — Eating and Roll- 
ing — A Mixed-up Breakfast — Being Rammed and Trod 
upon — Too much Hughes — Pope and Jordan — The 
Apotheosis of Calmness — Philosophy out of Place — Struck 
by a Norther — A Night of Pandemonium — Distressed 
Doctors — A Doctor's Appetite — A Doctor in Distress — 
Getting Dressed Successfully — Losing Time to Avoid 
Being Wrecked. 

Upon our return to Bocas del Toro we discovered 
that v^e were in need of a new supply of provisions. 
We had smoked the cigars, the ladies had consumed 
the sherry, Doctor Brower had drunk the water and 
the liquor had evaporated. Hence we resolved to 
make a night raid upon the company's warehouse. 

309 



3IO 



BACK 



The darkness was intense and it began to rain again, 
and as there were no street lamps, we had to find our 
way by the Hght of memory. This guided us success- 
fully both to the warehouse and to the mud puddles, 
the first of which was unfortunately closed and the 
latter open. However, the local doctors, our good 
genii, who always appeared whenever we "rubbed" up 
against difficulty and wished for anything, went off 
into the dark and hunted up the agent and found him 
eating. After he had finished what must have been 
a many-course dinner he finally appeared; but as he 
was not the custodian of the keys he started out to 
locate the negro who was, leaving us standing at the 
warehouse door in darkness and drizzle, and in hopes 
that negroes dined earlier and less protractedly than 
managers. When the negro at last arrived he also 
went away in search of a candle, for there was no 
provision for lighting the warehouses. The absence 
of lighting apparatus and the prohibition of smoking 
in the building served as a substitute for an insur- 
ance company and a fire department. When the can- 
dle finally came, its light was practically lost in the 
large salesroom, and the salesmen, who were the only 
beings that knew where the goods were kept, were 
not there. But we did not care to wait for the sales- 
man to eat and be sent for ; waiting and eating didn't 
seem to expedite matters. So we proceeded to hunt 
in the dark for the needles in the haystack, for the can- 
dle showed but one thing at a time, and that was after 
it had been brought about near enough to set it on 
fire. However, Doctor Brower found and purchased 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 311 

a box of one hundred bottles of White Rock, and 
Doctor Senn found plenty of Pommard, although 
Pommard was not what was wanted. 

By this time we young men were tired of waiting 
for what could not be found and, leaving the older 
ones marching single file around and about between 
the counters and shelves by the light of a candle, like 
a catacomb party without a guide, we waded across 
the muddy street toward a light that proved to be in 
the window of a Chinese provision store, and obtained 
what we wanted in a minute. We called for some 
Jamaica Tropicales, which were the only good cigars 
retailed over the counter in the Panama Republic. 
They were always uniform in quality as far as our 
experience went, and when the Chinaman put a half 
box of them on the counter we quickly transferred 
them to our pockets and called for more. But instead 
of opening a new box, he reached under the counter, 
gathered a couple of handfuls of cigars and placed 
them in the box out of which we had bought the oth- 
ers. This, of course, made us suspicious, since Ja- 
maica cigars must have been imported in boxes. Nev- 
ertheless, when compared with one I had left from 
a fine lot I had bought at Washington Hotel, I could 
not detect any difference. If the cigars were imita- 
tions they were works of imitative art that did credit 
even to a Chinaman, and were valuable as such. So 
we bought freely of them and felt still more certain 
of their genuineness because he charged us twenty- 
five cents in Panama silver instead of twenty cents, 
and would not listen to our offers to buy much more 



312 



BACK 



freely for twenty cents. We were, however, glad to 
pay the extra five cents as it was a sort of guarantee 
that they were genuine. We knew that an imitation 
never costs more than the original. Finding the cigars 
so orthodox, we called for sherry, and as it was la- 
beled exactly like that we had bought before, we pur- 
chased some and went out in the rain and mud re- 
joicing. 

We were soon back on shipboard, and when we had 
finished our dinner I sat down to enjoy one of my fresh 
Tropicales. To my surprise, it did not have the flavor 
it should have had, and became worse with each puff. 
I threw it away half smoked, for what I smoke on 
shipboard must be all right, or it is all wrong. I 
again compared those I had bought with the good one 
I had brought, and there still seemed to be no differ- 
ence. They looked so good that I felt like keeping them 
to look at whenever I was tempted to smoke. 
But that would have been selfish, for I had 
learned that Doctor Senn had not been able to 
find any cigars in the dark warehouse, and was 
longing for a good smoke. I also knew that anything 
that looked like tobacco would be acceptable to him, 
just as boiled leather made grateful soup for Mor- 
gan's buccaneers when they were starving on their 
way across the isthmus. So I presented my Chinese 
works of art to him. He accepted them gratefully 
without dreaming of questioning their quality, and 
smoked them on faith during the rest of the stormy 
voyage, a remarkable tour dc force at such a time. He 
had the faith that performs miracles and perfumes 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 313 

tobacco. During a storm a cigar seemed to steady 
him as a pole steadies a tight-rope walker. While the 
ladies were praying for fine weather, and the men 
sighing and groaning for it, Doctor Senn smoked 
for it, and got it. He made his own weather. To him 
storms and showers became unsubstantial externals 
and went up in smoke. Neither strong cigars nor 
mountain waves affected him nor disturbed the even 
tenor of his ways. He took them as they came and 
called them good. Indeed but few men are gifted 
with his powers of endurance nor his even temper in 
times of storm and distress. I was his roommate and, 
altogether, heard him sigh only twice while in the 
stateroom, and these sighs were probably merely lit- 
tle suppressed gusts of impatience at the choice of the 
ship he had made, and the ingratitude of the com- 
pany's officials in turning him out of his room after 
he had filled the ship for them with first-class passen- 
gers. 

I have thought it worth the while to mention this 
Chinese cheat for the benefit of those who remain at 
home and can not get their experience at first hand. 
It is necessary to be careful in buying wines and liq- 
uors and other less popular goods of them, to see that 
they are properly labeled and in unbroken packages. 
However, there is even then an opportunity of being 
cheated, for although the Chinese on the isthmus have 
not the facilities for putting up goods in imitation of 
those imported in packages, some of the white mer- 
chants are reported to be carrying on a large busi- 
ness in the substitution of goods. One firm in Colon 



314 BACK 

is said to have paid a single bill of $1,200 for counter- 
feit labels to be put upon goods of their own bottling. 
This is shocking to us North Americans, who have 
recently passed a law against false labeling. 

Of course, the Chinese are apt to buy these falsely 
labeled articles and sell them in good faith. Hence 
it is also better to get everything one can not judge 
of for himself from reputable business houses, al- 
though one may have to pay more. I remember that 
when Doctor Senn and I stopped at a Chinese store 
in Colon and asked for the best sherry in the country 
the Chinaman offered us a bottle for seventy cents in 
gold. We were too aristocratic to buy such cheap 
stuff, although the label looked genuine, and we re- 
fused to take it. We hunted up a well-known whole- 
sale and retail importing house and bought a bottle 
for a dollar. I afterward examined the label and it 
was exactly like the label on the Chinaman's seventy- 
cent bottle, and like the one on the bottle I bought 
of the Chinaman at Bocas del Toro for seventy cents. 
The wine tasted the same and was the same in every 
respect but one, viz., the price. We knew also that it 
was imported wine for we were not buying it in the 
United States. 

At last we were all aboard the Brighton: bananas, 
plantains, pineapples, oranges, wines, cigars, land- 
lubbers, land ladies and all, and started merrily for 
home. We were glad to get out of the mud and rain, 
and soon were off, and out in a rough sea. 

The next morning we awoke to find the ship rock- 
ing like a cradle. We had prepared ourselves to feast, 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 315 

but found ourselves ready to fast. Feasting is often a 
preparation for fasting. This fact is in keeping with 
the advice of the greatest mathematician and gravest 
philosopher in the business world, viz., the modern 
insurance agent, who says that in health we should 
be continually preparing for sickness and death. 
Feasting does it. 

All day long we had a succession of squalls and 
tropical showers, drenching the canvas of our steamer 
chairs and converting the upper deck into a rendez- 
vous of cold shower baths. The ladies staid in bed 
while the men wandered disconsolately along the wave- 
swept deck from the stuffy staterooms to the dreary 
dining-room. With the aid of appetizers some of the 
more determined ones managed to go to meals, nibble 
a little and hurry out on deck where the ever-waiting 
wave seldom failed to give a douche and get a d n. 

As Doctor Senn was not seasick, he was kept busy 
waiting on the ladies. There was no stewardess on 
board, but I am sure no stewardess could have been 
more willing for pay to do what he did out of kind- 
ness of heart. The ladies suffered not for iced sherry 
nor for egg-nogs and, under his care, got better when- 
ever the weather moderated. He proved to be a 
ladies' man in the best sense of the word. The steward, 
who was not a ladies' man, was kept busy in the din- 
ing-room and pantry most of the time but, acting as 
the doctor's assistant in preparing things, he man- 
aged to be of some occasional use besides putting on 
and taking off table food that was not tasted. Wheth- 
er the doctor enjoyed the honor thrust upon him of 
waiting upon the ladies, or whether he was clandes- 



3i6 BACK 

tinely annoyed, no one could assert or deny, for he did 
it with the same dutiful cheer that he ate, slept, 
smoked and worked, one or more of which he was do- 
ing all the time. 

During the night we ran into protected waters near 
the coast of Honduras and the doctor's patients all 
felt better, and Friday morning were able, by lying 
very still on their steamer chairs, to be on deck. He 
asked them how they felt and they said they felt quite 
well, and thanked him for it. The ship had stopped 
its pitching and had taken a slow-rolling gait, a sort 
of sea-canter, that was quite easy for those who liked 
it. 

The weather overhead was sunshiny and alluring, 
and all of the men but Doctor Brower and Doctor 
Frank were out. Suddenly, to our delight. Doctor 
Brower appeared among us and was greeted with ap- 
propriate applause. The doctor is a large man with 
one of those cheery natures whose hearty laugh 
spreads its contagion wherever it is heard. He is of 
sober Dutch descent, but so many American grafts 
have been incorporated into the original stock that the 
only Dutch qualities left are a large waist, great in- 
dustry, and an unusual capacity for work and words. 
Physically considered he is the equivalent of a whole 
roomful of Dutchmen, and has tenfold the vivacity of 
the whole Netherlands on his tongue. He has that 
easily aroused, nervous organism that belongs to our 
own country, and which is undoubtedly accentuated 
in him by having spent his whole adult life studying 
and treating neurasthenics and lunatics. It is a well- 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 317 

recognized fact that people who live with or associate 
intimately with the insane have more or less mental 
aberration induced in them by a sort of hypnotic sug- 
gestion, an aberration which neurologists recognize 
in others, but not in themselves. 

He greeted us without the signs of joyful emotion 
that characterized his usual manner, and hurried across 
the deck to the pile of steamer chairs, jerked off the 
topmost one, which was Doctor Frank's, and unfolded 
it hurriedly. Just as he had it straightened out and 
placed, the boat gave a lurch to one side and sent him 
staggering across the deck. When he struck the life- 
boat he clung to it, straightened up and stared at the 
chair defiantly, as if to say, "Damn !" But he had the 
gentlemanly instinct that did not allow him to forget 
himself in the presence of ladies. He tried to assume 
his usual cheerful but dignified expression, but his 
feature only expressed pathos and pathology. A roll- 
ing ship gathers no stoics, as the saying is. We would 
have led him to the chair, but we knew that he had 
the pride born of the habitual exercise of power and 
authority, and would resent help as long as he was 
able to be on his feet. Moreover, most of us felt 
that we ourselves might suddenly lose our dignity, 
etc., if we did not lie still. Finally the spirit of the 
soldier gained the upper hand. He made a success- 
ful charge upon the chair and dropped on it with such 
force that its rickety joints cracked and its slender 
legs began to spread. While on his feet he had dis- 
played some remnants of his great energy, but his 
head was no sooner down than his energy centered 



3iJ 



BACK 



itself in the stomach. He jumped up into a sitting 
posture as if started by an electric shock, and before 
he could get on his feet the deck was flooded with 
White Rock water. He then sank back in the steamer 
chair, causing more spreading and creaking of its 
frail legs and exclaimed, "I declare ! That White Rock 
tastes better out of the bottle than out of the stomach." 

At this, the lady who sat next to him could not re- 
sist an impulse to imitate him, although she had other- 
wise good manners. But she had no reserve of White 
Rock to call upon; she could produce nothing but a 
set of teeth, which went overboard. Discouraged 
with the result of so much conspicuous and exhaust- 
ive effort, she allowed herself to be helped off the 
scene by her gagging husband. Several of us sup- 
pressed a few sympathetic flourishes and hid our eyes 
like ostriches, and were safe. 

Pretty soon Doctor Senn, who had experience in 
about everything but in being seasick, began to think 
that perhaps Doctor Brower needed some helpful 
advice, and said in his kind, deliberate way: "Brower, 
you have been drinking again. I have always told 
you that so much water disagreed with you. The 
deck was made to be kept clean, but not with White 
Rock. If you would drink something stronger, it 
would teach you to drink less in quantity, and thus 
incline you toward moderation." 

Doctor Brower raised himself to make a vigorous 
response when the spreading legs of the rickety chair 
gave way, and man and chair collapsed, the doctor 
sick and the chair dead. 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 319 

"Come, Brower, let me help you to your state- 
room. Bed is the best place when you are sick." 

While saying this Doctor Senn went to him to help 
him, but he began to feel better and would not be 
helped. 

"No, thank you, Senn ; I am all right now. I never 
felt better. I'll try another chair." 

"Ah, I thought that you were not really sick. It 
was all a joke after all. As long as a man can con- 
tinue producing more than he consumes he must be 
all right. Have a cigar." 

Doctor Brower looked at the cigar, turned suddenly 
pale, said "Ugh," and started toward his stateroom. 

"What a great thing a sea voyage is to bring out 
all there is in a man," said Senn, as his friend disap- 
peared. He then lighted a fresh cigar and sat down 
to read French poetry. 

But Doctor Brower's experience was only a sample 
of what was in store for the rest of us. He merely 
got ahead of the crowd, as usual. Eleven o'clock, 
our breakfast hour, came an hour too late. By eleven 
o'clock the wind blew, the waves grew, and the break- 
fast flew. But the breakfast habit had become too 
firmly fixed to be broken off voluntarily, and when the 
hour came around, those of us who were able to be 
about could not resist the impulse to try our luck. Two 
ladies were counted among the brave when we solemn- 
ly filed into the dining-room, viz., Doctor Waite and 
Mrs. Brower. But they were out of place, for the oc- 
casion called for gymnastics rather than gustatics, for 
dexterity rather than daintiness. The table, which 



320 BACK 

extended across the room from side to side, was set 
with the frames on, for the rolHng of the ship was 
such that itself was about the only thing that did not 
go over. Every few minutes a big lurch would send 
dishes, frames, chairs and passengers sliding down to 
the end of the table, changing food from one framed 
space to another, and feet and elbows from one place 
to another. 

Doctor Hughes, who sat next to me, had an old 
head and a young face, and was of that indefinite age 
at which the hair turns prematurely white and men 
grow considerate and gentle in their ways and feel- 
ings. He was greatly distressed whenever his chair 
struck mine, when his feet came down upon my feet, 
when his elbow rammed my ribs, and his bottles and 
plates with their spilling contents mixed freely with 
mine. His elbows hurt me and he knew it; but he 
was helpless to avoid it, for I sat in the corner of an 
ell at the end of the table and served as a buffer 
to stop the advance of the whole line. He had the 
accumulated momentum of the others, besides the 
motion of the ship, to resist, but he had me for a cush- 
ion. His distress was mental ; mine was physical. 

In order to conceal my suffering I called in as gay a 

voice as I could command to Doctor Newman, who sat 

opposite on the solid seat that ran along the wall of the 

room, and was able to cling to his place and to his food. 

"What do you think of this jam. Doctor Newman?" 

"Fm fond of jam ; pass it over, please." 

"Ask Doctor Hughes. I got mine from him." 

"Oh ! Ah ! I see ! You've got too much Hughes. 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 



321 



Everything is going your way. But this passive 
exercise is just what we all need. The boat is doing 
the moving ; all we have to do is to resist, and to eat." 

Doctor Frank had brought Jordan's "Majesty of 
Calmness" to read en voyage, but had not yet come 
out of his five-days' doze. So Doctor Hughes bor- 
rowed it (not the doze), and spent the afternoon read- 
ing extracts to us from it, and in quoting Pope's 
"Essay on Man." At any other time and place I prob- 
ably could have appreciated these books, although I 
would not have taken time to read them, but it seemed 
to me that Jordan was more or less possessed about the 
word calmness. It is easy to say to yourself or to 
the sea, "Be calm," but there are things beyond Jor- 
dan both in the mind and in the sea. Pope's polished 
verse and filigreed philosophy are out of place in the 
trade-winds. Even the meaning of words and the 
truth of philosophy depend upon the way the wind 
blows. It is not what the author writes, but what the 
reader reads that makes the book. 

We were heartily weary of trade-winds which came 
from the east and kept steadily in our quarter, and 
we clamored for a change, knowing that all things 
come to those that wait. And the change did come. 
At about 9 P. M. the wind changed and a "norther" 
struck us. And we quickly realized that it was a 
change, all except Doctor Senn. He may have no- 
ticed a difference. It was one of those things nobody 
could divine. 

Discretion was the only part of valor for us and we 
arrayed ourselves on the side of Doctor Brower, who 
21 



322 



BACK 



was a born leader. We got to bed as quickly as pos- 
sible without thinking of consequences, or of prepar- 
ing either our souls or our staterooms. The ship be- 
gan to pitch as well as roll, and a sort of "still life" 
pandemonium kept us awake all night. The steamer 
screw was out of water half of the time and shook 
us, and the motion of the boat knocked us about in 
our bunks until we felt beaten up like raw eggs. The 
electric light was put out as usual at midnight and 
we were left to our imaginations. Doors and port- 
hole windows began to slam with startling thuds, 
chairs tumbled over and bumped back and forth, bot- 
tles rolled and clinked around the stateroom floors, 
while heavy things all over the ship fell and crashed. 
The sailors did such noisy work that we could not lis- 
ten to it and sleep. The night was long and dreary. 
Finally at daybreak the machinery suddenly stopped 
working, allowing the ship to drift before the wind, 
but the sailors made more noise than ever, replacing 
broken bolts and tying the shaky rudder on with ropes. 
I knew that the boat was drifting and said, "Let her 
drift. Let her go down. Let us have peace." I 
thought that I might as well die in bed as to get up 
and die with my boots on. I might as well lie there 
comfortably and die from taking too much water as to 
get up and drink California sherry, and have my head 
cracked against the bunks and washstand beforehand, 
or against the walls of the narrow passageways. I 
might as well be a good-looking corpse as a mutilated 
one. I was less helpless in bed than out of it. In bed 
I could die with majesty, the majesty of calmness. 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 32,3 

Besides, it was rainy and cold outside, and although 
my bed was a hard rolling-place, I dreaded the diffi- 
cult dressing, the dreary standing about all day in the 
cold, the holding on, and, above all, the dizziness and 
distress that belonged to keeping the head up. So I 
remained in bed and took my chances. 

The slamming, hammering, clinking and shaking 
of the screw all stopped at last, which gave a certain 
kind of relief and enabled me to hear what was going 
on in the corridors and adjoining staterooms. Ap- 
parently some of the others were trying to get up and 
out into the rain and cold. I suppose that, like eating, 
the habit of getting up in the morning had grown oh 
them and that they could not rest until they had done 
it. The first thing I heard was a feminine voice say- 
ing: 

"How bad the air is in here ! — If I could only get up 
on deck ! — Doctor Senn, are you anywhere ? If you 
are, will you please bring me some iced sherry? — If 
I only had something on my stomach it wouldn't make 
me feel so sick. I'm so faint. I wish I had an egg- 
nog." 

Soon afterward I heard Doctor Newman call out in 
a sonorous, unnecessarily cheerful voice at the other 
end of the hallway. 

"Why, good morning. Doctor! How do you feel 
this morning?" 

A man's voice answered : 

"First rate, thank you. Did you rest well?" 

"Slept like a top. Only woke up once when I 
rolled out of bed upon an overturned stool and struck 
my head. Let's go and have our coffee." 



324 



BACK 



"No, thank you; I'm not going to take anything 
this morning." 

"Why not ?" said Newman. "Why, I wouldn't miss 
my coffee and strawberry jam for the world. Come 
along; it will ballast you and keep you from being 
light-headed." 

"No; I'm not hungry. You can have my share of 
rattan coffee and straw juice jam this morning. I 
never eat without an appetite." 

"Nor I," answered Newman, "but I always eat. It 
doesn't matter what you eat; it's how it tastes. I 
have an empty place inside of me the size of the Unit- 
ed States. This constant motion of the ship doesn't 
give your appetite any rest. See you later. Wish you'd 
come." 

Pretty soon some one came stumbling along the 
narrow passageway and exclaimed as he struck his 
head or something against a partition: 

"Ouch I What to —11 did I get out of that infernal 
bed for? I wish the Lord had made the waves some 
other shape. I'd rather get out and walk home than 
ride up every derned single wave in the ocean and 
then slide back again. I always supposed that a boat 
went forward instead of upward and downward and 
sideways. Confound the boat! — I wish 'twould go 
to the bottom. 'Twould serve the miserly Fruit Com- 
pany right for putting people in such a drifting rat- 
trap. I wish I were home. Home is good enough 
for me. Whoo-oop!" 

This periodic whooping reminded me how undigni- 
fied people will act in the most conspicuous places and 



FROM BAD TO WORSE 325 

inopportune moments, and how often such unseemly 
actions become contagious and spread like laughter. 

The man had evidently rushed or staggered out to the 
outer door as he uttered the last whoop. After 
a short session of silent thought, I heard him walk 
back to his stateroom mumbling between his teeth : 

"The yellow fever is bad enough, but seasickness 
is a deuced sight worse. The next time I want to see 
a canal I'll look at the Chicago Drainage Canal. When 
I want a change of climate I'll stay in Chicago where 
it's always changing, and where it sometimes changes 
for the better." 

I took an ounce of dry sherry at nine-thirty and 
again at ten, and soon after arose to give my bones 
a needed rest. After some shivering from the unac- 
customed cold, some unintentional collisions and gy- 
rations about the room, and some expressions of opin- 
ion about the luxury and healthfulness of sea voyages, 
followed now and then by a short recess in my bunk 
in order to press my bruised scalp into shape and allow 
the whirl in my head to subside, I succeeded at last 
in getting my winter flannels and heavy suit out of 
my trunk and on me. As the result of the night's 
wakefulness and the morning's exercise of bracing 
and holding on while dressing, I actually felt a desire 
to eat, and resolved to do it before I changed my 
mind. 

There were not many at table, for most of those who 
had arisen early had already changed their mind. As 
I couldn't conceive of anything worse than going back 
to my cabin, I lay down on the cushioned benches 



326 •-; - ■■■ BACK - 

along the wall of the dining-room and gained some 
of the rest I had lost during the noisy night. We were 
going ahead again but only at the rate of seven knots 
an hour, were already nearly twenty-four hours be- 
hind our schedule time, and were likely to lose an- 
other twenty-four before reaching New Orleans, To 
try to go faster would have put us in danger of break- 
ing the screw propeller, of losing our loose rudder 
and of cracking open at the part of our shell that had 
struck on the reef. In fact, we had been voyaging 
under conditions that according to natural laws and 
insurance statistics should have resulted in a wreck, 
and were content to be careful. Better two more days 
of comparative purgatory than to take up hastily and 
without preparation a longer residence in some more 
uncertain place. 



CHAPTER V 

The Didactics of Seasickness 

Breaking the Sabbath — Giving up — Humiliation — Beef Tea 
Versus Coffee — A Disappointed Engineer — English with- 
out Grammar — The Lecture — Pathology — She-sickness 
—A Rebuke — Symptoms — A Homoeopathic Cure — The 
Passive Treatment — A Reproach — Conclusions — A Sug- 
gestion and a Vote of Thanks. 

During the first day of the "norther" both the ship 
and myself came through without any but threatened 
accidents, although neither of us was seaworthy. The 
next morning, however, my stomach broke the Sab- 
bath and my pride had a fall. To arise early on Sun- 
day is a bad habit ; we are commanded to make Sunday 
a day of rest, I ought to have known better. 

I arose in time for "coffee" and found the "norther" 
breaking the Sabbath, but did not take the hint. I 
stumbled out of bed and was precipitated across the 
stateroom, balancing and plunging from door to wash- 
stand and from bunk to trunk. I got one foot in my 
trousers and fell over, tried it again and sat down 
on the floor, holding on with my right hand while 
I pulled up my left suspender, and vice versa. Sud- 
denly my stomach felt as if it were going to break, 
as the Germans say. I quickly ducked my head and 
allowed myself to be thrown into my bunk, and called 

327 



328 BACK 

up Christian Science, as I had successfully done the 
day before. But it was Sunday and she wouldn't 
work. It would have been a feather in Doctor Brew- 
er's hat to have caught me. But he probably was too 
busy himself to be out hunting for feathers. After 
a short rest I took some sherry, which is not a calen- 
dar saint, and it worked, for in half an hour I was 
able to finish my toilet and go to the dining-room and 
publicly drink a cupful of beef tea. The ship coffee 
did not tempt me, which was a point in its favor. In- 
deed, if all coffee were poor it would be better— it 
would have less opportunity to do harm in the world. 

I lay around in the dining-room after a light break- 
fast and listened to instructive talks about yellow 
fever, leprosy, etc., but was particularly interested 
and enlightened by a non-professional Western gen- 
tleman who had gone to Panama in search of a job; 
one of those travelers who, like Walter Raleigh, had 
never eaten with a fork. He claimed to be an ex- 
perienced engineer (whether civil or locomotive, he 
did not say) who had not been able to procure any 
kind of work there with a larger salary than thirty 
dollars a month, although Wallace was drawing much 
more than that. Hence he had kicked some of the 
mud off his feet and was on his way back to "God's 
earth." He could not praise De Lesseps and the 
French enough. The French employed white men 
and paid them like gentlemen. 

But the most interesting part of his long and loud 
conversation was the illustration it afforded of how 
the English language can be used to express vividly 



THE DIDACTICS OF SEASICKNESS 329 

and intelligibly all sorts of sentiments for hours at a 
stretch without conforming to a single rule of gram- 
mar. It was a most complete triumph of synesis over 
syntax, of eloquence over elegance. How he had 
learned to disregard the rules of grammar so uner- 
ringly was marvelous. The unequivocal force and 
fluent ferocity of his expressions afforded a striking 
compliment to our self-made language. Foreigners 
think that the English language has no grammar, and 
it was the mission of the engineer to prove that it 
could do without it. He expressed himself much more 
clearly and impressively than a large proportion of 
men do whose speech is all grammar. He said: 

"Them French was cracker- jacks, and no joke. 
They wasn't afeared to employ white men, nohow; 
and they knowed how to treat 'em. The Amerikins 
won't employ nobody but niggers or such as works for 
niggers' wages. They'll never get the blamed banana 
canal digged no way. They ain't nothin' doin', nor 
won't be while them fellers is bossin' the job, and it's 
up to you and I to show 'em up. A man kin go down 
there and work until he pegs out, but he can't get no 
pay fur it — only hell. The hull business ain't got 
nuther head nor tail, it needs preorganization, and 
that's what it ain't got. As to Wallace, him and me 
ain't old cronies, but we know each other, and that's 
enough." I concluded that he was a locomotive engi- 
neer, a loco as the Spanish would call him. 

As it was Sunday and there was no ordained 
preacher aboard, and Doctor Senn wouldn't preach, 
and Doctor Brower couldn't preach while the wind 



330 BACK 

blew, I delivered a medical lecture on seasickness, be- 
lieving that the best way of benefiting them morally 
was by material instruction. I felt that I could speak 
from experience, and that there were those about me 
who could appreciate from experience. We could at 
least hold an experience meeting, I began: 

"Seasickness may be defined as an uncertain attitude 
followed by a certain act. It is one of the most ancient 
and orthodox of known ailments. The Greeks called 
it nausea or boatsickness, and it has changed neither 
in name, in nature nor in the manner of manifesting 
itself. It is thus as immutable as the Catholic religion, 
although it depends upon the weather, which, during 
the past few centuries, has undergone many changes, 
like the Protestant. It resembles religion in that it 
has no pathology ; it resembles disease in that it makes 
people sick. It depends neither upon germs nor upon 
imagination as do the modern orthodox ailments." 

At this there was a murmur of dissent and slight 
temporary inattention. Raising my voice, therefore, 
like a lawyer, I proceeded: 

"To illustrate: When a woman has hysteria she 
wishes you to treat her, and not the disease ; but when 
she is seasick, she wishes you to treat the disease, and 
let her alone." 

Doctor Morrow, the tall, lardaceous, disgustingly 
healthy and handsome-looking young doctor from 
California, who could laugh more eloquently than he 
could talk, interrupted me and wanted to know if it 
wasn't j/i<?-sickness that I referred to. 

"No, sir," I said, "I refer to seasickness. Seasick- 



THE DIDACTICS OF SEASICKNESS 331 

ness does not wear off during the daytime and does 
not depend upon conditions within, but on conditions 
without the body. In order that seasickness or Greek 
nausea may exist there must be a boat and a breeze — 
a zephyr, as the Greeks called it. 'Tis interesting to 
note that the discovery by the Greeks that the disease 
was a boat-sickness, or disease of the boat, led them^ 
to personify the boat. And this is why a boat is called 
she instead of it. The word nausea originally had an 
h in it, and was spelled nau-she-a." 

"Then the Greeks did consider it a she-sickness," 
butted in Doctor Morrow, who was still harping on 
women — a man of one idea. 

"Doctor Morrow, you have yet to learn the silence 
of medicine, which, in practice, is as important as the 
science. And as for the art, the Greeks would have 
made a statue of Hercules out of you, and would have 
given you muscle in place of fat, form in place of 
speech, poise instead of avoirdupois. A want of si- 
lence is often more meaningless than a want of speech. 
The disease could not have been j/j^-sickness, although 
if you insist on gender, you might call it /j^r-sickness 
since the disease can be said to affect her, but can not 
be said to affect she. Both Greek and grammar are 
against it." 

He was silenced, even to his laugh. 

"The symptoms are exaggerated but honorable 
hiccups, a persistent but harmless disinclination to re- 
tain food, and an indifference to danger that makes 
one willing to be thrown overboard without having 
the courage or energy to insist upon being thrown. 



332 BACK 

"The treatment is always successful, for the pa- 
tients all get well. As an illustration of how a com- 
plete cure may thus be effected I will relate the case of 
a confessed homceopath who, I am ashamed to say, 
crossed the Atlantic in the same boat in which I did. 
He prescribed for himself pure water taken accord- 
ing to homoeopathic 'dilution,' viz., ten drops of water 
in a tumblerful of whiskey, two tablespoonfuls to be 
taken every half hour or two while awake. And he 
continued thus taking water until we arrived at our 
destination. I met him three days after, and asked him 
if he had been seasick. He said that he had felt bad 
since leaving the boat, but couldn't remember having 
felt sickness of any kind on the boat. This was a 
perfect remedy in his case, and the proper one for 
those who believe in homoeopathy." 

"Hear, hear!" "Y-o-u-reka !" "Down with homoeop- 
athy," and other spontaneous applause greeted me 
from all sides, and encouraged me to continue talking. 

"But there is another class of cases and another kind 
of treatment, viz., the passive or starvation treatment, 
which is homoeopathy carried to its true and logical 
end and aim. 

"It consists in going to bed and eating nothing and 
drinking water from a teaspoon until the boat has 
given up plunging, or arrives at its destination. If 
the patient is still able to do so he then arises and as- 
sumes the activities and indulgences of life, and tem- 
porarily recovers. This is the fat man's remedy. His 
stomach is relieved of its fat and of its fullness. It 
gives him the prolonged fast that his burdened sys- 



THE DIDACTICS OF SEASICKNESS 333 

tern needs and which he has not the self-denial and 
fortitude to take on shore. It constitutes the benefit 
of a sea voyage upon his health, and is the only obe- 
sity cure worthy of trial, except the one employed by 
Panama cabdrivers upon their horses. 

"We have an illustration of the efficacy of the passive 
treatment in Doctor Frank. He stays in bed and rests 
his stomach. He neither eats nor drinks, yet not one 
of you is improving in health as he is. It is the repu- 
diation of our food and the ridicule of our remedies, 
since the patient has nothing to do but not to eat and 
drink. If his patients knew of this and had common 
sense instead of blind faith, Doctor Frank would not 
have to go to sea to starve. Our patients should 
therefore know what we do, but not what we do not do. 
For a lot of doctors to embark in a boat and have 
everything their own way, and learn nothing and do 
nothing about boat-sickness, except to get it, is a 
reproach to our profession. You talk knowingly, but 
you must remember that boat-sickness is not a mere 
postprandial-ephemera. You ought to know that one 
should not only fast on board but also on land before 
boarding. How not to eat is an oriental delicacy " 

Here I was interrupted with such long-continued 
applause and discussion and such frivolous interroga- 
tions that I concluded that they were unfit to be re- 
formed, and did not wish to learn how not to eat. How 
not to eat is one of the lost arts. In keeping with the 
development of the culinary art, man's longevity has 
diminished in 6,000 years from 969 down to 70 years, 
and his teeth and appendix have been steadily dwin- 



334 BACK 

dling and will soon fall out. In a few thousand more 
years another zero will be dropped from his age and 
the world will contain babes only. But as my audi- 
ence was unprepared for such a revelation, I closed 
with the following short summary of my views : 

"Therefore, seasickness is not a disease to be avoid- 
ed, but a remedy to be taken. You have much to learn, 
but much more to unlearn before you can tell the 
world anything about it. You must become as babes, 
and be unborn and born again before you can unlearn 
and learn again." 

"Every man to his berth," shouted Morrow, who 
was entirely devoid of a sense of humor. He regard- 
ed my lecture as a joke. 

A vote of thanks was passed with the request that, 
if I should talk again, I take up the subject she-sick- 
ness, which they considered more interesting and more 
in my line. They were still harping on women, and I 
resolved to cast no more pearls, remembering that all 
big D's do not stand for doctor. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Last Day at Sea and the First on Land 

A Bad Headache and a Bitter Dose — A Poem — ^The Singing 
Cherubs — A Sign of Fair Weather — Promised Feasting — 
Eating Oneself into Premature Old Age, and Starving 
into a Ripe Old Age — A Delicate Question — A Business 
Meeting — Drawing up Resolutions to Exonerate the 
Captain — The Eads and Jetties — An Enjoyable Toilet — 
A Hook Apiece — The Penalty of Early Rising — A Cold 
Day — Discovery of the Preston — Unfavorable Compari- 
son — New Orleans and Oysters — Absinthe — A Fraudu- 
lent Automobile Ride — Advice to Young Men — A Cor- 
rected Advertisement — ^The French Quarter and Legend- 
ary New Orleans 

The next morning was Monday, our last day on the 
"ocean wave" and "rolling deep," with all its poetry 
and pantomime. We were due at New Orleans Tues- 
day forenoon and were happy in anticipation of soon 
being back on prosaic land again. 

When I awoke I knew that the "norther" was weak- 
ening, for the motion of the boat was quite consistent 
with an elaborate toilet, and produced no uncomforta- 
ble sensations. In fact, the cool, invigorating United 
States air made all of us feel lively and disposed us 
to object to coffee and jam sandwiches as a substi- 
tute for something to eat. 

Everybody was well and on deck except Doctor 
335 



336 BACK 

Waite, who had a headache. When I had about com- 
pleted my elaborate toilet (which consisted not of any 
extra finery, but rather of an elaboration and delib- 
eration in the adjustment of the same old weather- 
worn and salted-down garments), I opened my state- 
room door just in time to be in at the finish of an in- 
teresting sick headache. Doctor Waite had sent for 
Doctor Hughes, one of those prescribing neurologists 
who place their confidence in medicine rather than in 
their Maker, who pursue their cases to death, and 
dose them until they die. He wore a gentle, white- 
haired, sugar-icure expression on his face, and suggest- 
ed an overflowing fountain of professional kindness in 
the tones of his voice. But he was giving her one of 
those old-fashioned bitter draughts such as only neurol- 
ogists know how to compound — not harmful but worse, 
and which depend largely upon their taste to cure 
the patient of all further desire for diseases or drugs. 
She, womanlike, swallowed the dose as if it had been 
the gospel. It was hardly down, however, before it 
returned as if from a volcano, and threatening to 
carry away the crown of her head. She was frightened 
at the suddenness and intensity of the paroxysm and 
disgusted by the terrible taste, or she would have no- 
ticed the immediate relief that followed. In her sud- 
den fright she exclaimed: 

"Oh, Doctor, you've killed me; you've killed me. 
Ugh! This is terrible." 

"Madam!" said Doctor Hughes in his soft and 
gentle way, "you misjudge me. I may be a killing 
man but I'm not a killing doctor. Ahem !" 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 337 

Doctor Waite had to laugh at him; and her head- 
ache passed off. She expressed a determination, 
however, not to have another until she was safe at 
home. 

At the breakfast table one of the doctors, whose 
identity I will not betray, read the following poem: 

Low she lay with aching head, 

Mingling moan with smothered sigh. 

"Dose her," all the doctors said; 

"Dose her, Hughes, or she will die." 

Dosed her with his deadly stuff 
Till she groaned, "My end is nigh." 

Then the doctors said, "Enough! 

Make her laugh, Hughes, or she'll cry." 

"I'm a killing man," he coughed, 

"But no killing doctor — see?" 
She forgot the dose, and laughed. 

She was cured, and it was he. 

Hughes-dee-dum and Hughes-dee-dee. 

We had hardly finished criticising the impropriety 
of thus making public the privacy of the sick-chamber 
when we were startled by a hilarious hullabaloo out- 
side, a strident inharmony of jubilant vocal sounds 
emulating and imitating the cadence of song. We 
looked toward the port-hole windows, and there stood 
Fasting Frank and Heavenly Hughes leaning on their 
elbows and smiling like cherubs, and singing popular 
songs at the top of their voices. I blushed at the un- 
dignity of it. Doctors ! Professors ! Fathers ! I felt 
embarrassed. They would not have done it before their 
22 



338 BACK 

families and patients. But I was glad to see them, 
for I knew that if Doctor Frank had come out of his 
hole in the wall fair weather and a calm sea had come 
in earnest. The greeting we gave him was vocifer- 
ous and as undignified as his behavior. His seasick- 
ness had been a premeditated means of increasing 
his popularity without exerting himself. He had fast- 
ed himself into favor. To see him smile like a child, 
and then howl like a Dervish after a five-days' fast 
and close confinement, made us regard him as a suf- 
fering hero who no longer suffered, although anyone 
who couldn't eat could do the same. 

We persuaded him to come in to "coffee," although 
he declared that it was against his principles to eat or 
drink at sea. He wasn't ready to be tempted yet. 

"Tut, tut!" I said, "A cup of coffee and half a roll 
can not upset you, now that the storm is over." 

"Half a roll, man!" he cried. "Do you know what 
it is to eat half a roll after a five-days' fast? Half a 
roll! Do you know how good it feels to fill up a 
complete and perfect vacuum in you when you get 
started ? Do you know how good it feels to have your 
stomach full of solid greasy food after it has been 
digesting itself for a week?" 

"Do I know?" said I. "It is the man who denies 
himself that knows the joys of indulgence. To habit- 
ually suffer from prolonged and painful hunger before 
each meal, and always stop when you have taken a 
few mouthfuls and your appetite is at its fiery zenith, 
is the best training for the mad enjoyment of a full 
and filling meal that I know of; and I know of it. 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 339 

You are young yet. Wait until you get the gout and 
you'll be thankful for half a roll. You're not rich 
enough to appreciate half of a dry roll. Your time is 
coming." 

"Why, you're just the man I am seeking," he ex- 
claimed. "I am hunting for a fellow who is as starved 
as I am and as you look. When we get to New Or- 
leans to-morrow morning, we will have an oyster 
supper, postponed from to-night; at noon we'll have 
an oyster supper for lunch, and before we take the 
night train to Chicago we will have another oyster 
supper. Just think of it, if we were not thirty-six 
hours late we would have the three suppers in us 
now." 

"Doctor Frank," I said, "you are going to make 
yourself sick in earnest, for on land you will not have 
seasickness to cure and curb you of your overeating. 
I will eat these three suppers with you and get my 
stomach full for once — and then swear off forever." 

Here Doctor Morrow interrupted me. "Full for 
once? Full forever, you mean! You have only been 
full once since we left Bocas — you have kept at that 
sherry between meals and claret at meals " 

"Doctor Morrow, I refer to food — food only. On 
dry land I drink neither sherry nor claret, only water 
at different temperatures and dilutions. I am glad 
to say that I am not as you are. I do not intend to 
harden my arteries and bring on premature arterio- 
sclerosis by overeating. You eat twice as much as 
-you ought to eat every day of your life, except when 
you are 'off your food,' as the result of it, and when 



340 BACK 

nature evens up by forcing you to fast. I intend to 
curb my appetite. To make use of a paradox, I might 
say that I am going to starve myself to a good old 
age." 

"You've done it already." 

"Look here, Morrow, you're a great man, thanks 
to your appetite. But beware ! A man is also as old as 
his appetite makes him. You'll die of old age by the 
time you are forty. If I had your appetite I'd have 
been dead ten years ago. You are the most unprom- 
ising insurance risk here except Doctor Newman, who 
was never made to be an old man and knows it, and 
who can thus eat himself to death with impunity. 
There is hope for the others. Doctor Frank fasts 
occasionally, and thus postpones the day of reckon- 
ing. Doctor Senn is smoked through and through, 
and smoked bodies undergo no farther change or de- 
cay. Doctor Brower is water-soaked, and water- 
soaked timber sometimes lasts a long time. Doctor 
Hughes and I are drying up, and when we are thor- 
oughly dried we will last longer than any of you." 

"How about me ?" asked Doctor Waite. 

"I cannot pass upon your case, for the nour- 
ishing and keeping qualities of eggs are uncertain. 
In a cold climate you might live quite a long time." 

While I was talking, all had left the dining-room 
except Doctor Waite, who arose to follow them. I 
knew that she was exceedingly conscientious and 
truthful, and I determined to ask her a question about 
a matter which was troubling my conscience. 

"Doctor Waite, you have asked me a question ; may 
I ask you an equally important one in return?" 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 



341 



"Why, certainly, Doctor, and I shall try and be as 
frank as you were when I asked mine." 

"I merely wish to ask you if you have noticed 
anything wrong about me?" 

She said she had noticed that I had been in a crit- 
ical state of mind ever since we left Colon. 

"In a critical state? Is that so? Am I as bad off 
as that?" 

"You have raked us over the coals pretty badly." 

"Is that so ? I often do things badly. I'll try and do 
it better hereafter. But have I been acting out of 
the ordinary? Has my articulation been distinct? I 
sometimes talk without listening to myself, and " 

"And so do not always know what you are saying," 
she said with a little laugh. "Well, if I must speak 
out I should say that you are talking somewhat unin- 
telligibly now. I hadn't paid enough attention before 
to notice it." 

"Well, I feel very much obliged to you for not 
noticing it. There is no harm in talking unintelli- 
gibly when you are not noticed. I wish I knew wheth- 
er I have been enjoying myself or not. Having a good 
time is much more unsatisfactory when you don't know 
it. At home I have a good time working hard, but I 
know it; on this voyage I have worked much harder 
at having a good time, and didn't know I had it. At 
home I shall work off this tired feeling. In fact, I 
should have explained before " 

"Never explain anything to a woman, Doctor. Ex- 
planations and arguments never convince us. We are 
apt to take them as jokes to be laughed at." 



342 BACK 

"Well, women are right. They laugh much more 
effectually than they reason. To laugh at us is one of 
woman's rights. And we laugh with them to show 
that we approve of woman's rights. But I merely 
wanted to get an honest professional opinion, and 
didn't know how. They are so hard to find. I have 
been calculating how much alcoholic liquor I have 
consumed since landing at Colon a little over two 
weeks ago. I have drunk half a pint of whiskey, two 
quart bottles of beer, three quart bottles of wine and 
a quart of soft drinks. Think of the mixture ! I have 
kept on drinking regularly and have not, to my knowl- 
edge, been intoxicated. I have felt well during the 
whole time until now, but now I'm beginning to feel 
bad. What I want to know is whether I have been 
irresponsible during the whole time and am just be- 
ginning to clear up, or whether I have been sober the 
whole of the time and am just beginning to feel the 
effects of all I have taken." 

She again laughed three or four notes as she an- 
swered : 

"Well, there has certainly been something unusual 
about you, but whether it was due to the disturbance 
of the liquid in the sea or in the bottles I will not at- 
tempt to decide. In the first place, I never saw you 
so critical in Chicago as you have been on board. In 
the second place, you have been offering and recom- 
mending wine to ladies, which you never do in Chi- 
cago. In the third place, you have criticised my eat- 
ing, which no other gentleman has done." 

"Thank you," I said. "I'll do it as a doctor here- 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 343 

after, not as a gentleman. As a return favor I will 
ask of you not to speak of my condition to any one in 
Chicago. I suppose the delegates all know of it. But 
I'll shut their mouths ; I'll treat them in New Or- 
leans, etc." 

"But, Doctor, they would refuse to take treatment. 
They will not be sick on dry land. Sherry will be su- 
perfluous there." 

She finally got away from me and my questions, 
and went to prepare egg-nogs for the convalescing 
ladies. She beats the world making egg-nogs — for 
ladies. Men don't like them. 

Later we held a business meeting of the passengers 
in the dining-room in order to give substantial ex- 
pression of our gratitude to the gentlemanly crew of 
the S. S. Brighton for our rescue from the reefs in 
the lagoon of Chiriqui on a dark and rainy night ; also 
to the captain who had so successfully stood the trial 
of his first trip as a commander and had consulted 
the heavens so diligently for us, predicting stormy 
weather with unerring accuracy. We feared that the 
adventure of the reefs might be used by his enemies 
and the United Fruit Company as an excuse for de- 
priving him of his command of the smallest, most 
rickety and most sure-to-go-down boat of the line. 

We also took up a subscription which netted each 
man of the crew a dollar for having risked his life 
for us when the boat struck and stuck on the bottom 
where it really belonged. 

We then drew up the following resolutions in honor 
of the captain, to be presented by him to the United 



344 BACK 

Fruit Company. We made them strong and striking 
in order that they might not be put aside unnoticed : 

"Whereas, the S. S. Brighton did, between the night 
of Jan. 10 and the morning of Jan. ii, 1905, come to 
rest on a reef in Chiriqui Lagoon, and thus imperil the 
hves of her passengers and the reputation of her cap- 
tain; 

"Whereas, the S. S. Brighton was not made for 
man but for bananas ; 

"Whereas, in a time of danger, when the moon and 
stars failed and darkness prevailed, when the pas- 
sengers were suffering from the fear of death and the 
feeling of nausea, the captain was cool and collected 
and waited in patience until the sun arose and the cock 
crew and the ship forced its way backward into deep 
water ; 

"Whereas, we deliberately and of our own free 
will, chose the said Brighton, and were thus respon- 
sible for our mistake, and the company of its own 
free will chose the captain and is thus responsible for 
his mistakes; 

"Whereas, we should not have been caught out at 
night in the absence of the heavenly bodies, or of the 
phosphorescence of the waves, or of the fireflies of 
the beach to indicate to the negro pilot where we were 
at; 

"Therefore, be it resolved that we, the benighted 
and bereeft passengers of the S. S. Brighton, do hereby 
express and extend our thanks to the captain and the 
ship for successfully getting us off the bottom and 
out of danger; 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 345 

"Resolved, that we assume the blame for the acci- 
dent in that we added weight to the ship and worry to 
the captain; 

"Resolved, that we promise nevermore to put this 
responsibihty upon the ship, but will stay at home 
and attend to our own affairs ; 

"Resolved, that we beg clemency and favor for the 
gallant captain, and that he be given a pilot who can 
see in the dark; 

"Finally, we, the survivors of the last but not 
least eventful voyage of the S. S. Brighton, do peti- 
tion that the ship be enlarged as fast as possible, that 
basins be attached to the pillow-ends of the bunks, 
that the allowance of wash water be doubled, that the 
electric lights be not put out at midnight, that evap- 
orated cream be provided for coffee instead of con- 
densed milk, and that bananas and bric-a-brac here- 
after be carried to the exclusion of passengers. 

"Signed." 

There was a prolonged discussion as to whether we 
should all sign these resolutions individually or wheth- 
er merely the president, Doctor Brower, and the sec- 
retary of the meeting, Doctor Morrow, should sign 
officially. The secretary was finally forced to sign 
them alone. 

We were to arrive at the jetties at 10 P. M. accord- 
ing to the captain's consultations with the heavenly 
bodies. Now if the captain had any shortcomings it 
was not a lack of devotion to the heavenly bodies, 
which he consulted frequently and fervently. But he 
never succeeded in fixing correctly the time of arrival 



346 BACK 

anywhere. It was I who had faith in the heavenly 
bodies, yet never consulted them, who could prophesy 
unerringly. Whenever the captain announced the time 
I added two hours. So when we were told that we 
would arrive at the jetties at lo P. M., I knew that we 
would arrive at midnight. 

About half of the passengers had never seen the jet- 
ties, for on their trip to Panama they had passed out 
of the river after bedtime. And now that they were 
to enter the river after dark they were inconsolable. 
Next to Panama they desired to see the jetties, about 
which they had heard and read so much. They asked 
all sorts of questions about them; what jetties meant, 
what Eads meant, what jetties and Eads looked like. 

The .sun sank in Oriental splendor behind his green 
and golden bedcurtains as we went to dinner, and the 
unfortunates complained of the sun for setting before 
we got to the Eads and jetties. They blamed the cap- 
tain for not having sailed faster during the storm 
in order to arrive before sundown. They were not 
content with having escaped the dangers of the reef, 
as well as having kept the rudder and saved the screw 
and crew during the storm. With them the jetties 
were the thing, the dangers passed were nothing. Who 
cares for dangers that are passed? They wished that 
they had waited for the Preston, or that the Brighton 
would anchor outside all night. 

We told them that they could sit up and see the 
lights, and so could tell everybody that they had seen 
the Eads and jetties. 

As they kept on asking what the Eads and jetties 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 347 

looked like, they received various answers. Some said 
they looked like lighthouses on piers ; others that they 
were like Greek temples covered with electric lights ; 
others said that they were nude figures of lions bearing 
immense candelabra on their heads and electric lights 
on their tails; others said that they were a narrow 
channel running out at sea — mere longitudinal space. 
When we got through answering them they were dis- 
couraged, for they would not be able to describe the 
Eads and jetties to their friends at home. 

They, of course, took the captain's word that we 
would pass the jetties at 10 P. M. and paid no atten- 
tion to my assurance that we would pass them at mid- 
night. At ten o'clock they were gaping and shivering 
on deck like tired ghosts on a moonless night, and 
wished they had gone to bed. By eleven it was 
evident that I had told them the truth about the 
time of passing the jetties, so they placed a sentinel 
to watch the Eads and jetties and report what he saw, 
that they might describe them to their friends. 

I enjoyed making my toilet the following morning 
as I had not for a long time. To be able to stand still 
and stretch both arms above my head leisurely and 
without danger of falling; to be able to gape without 
having a tooth knocked loose by an approaching shelf 
or edge of a bunk ; to be able to get the right foot in 
the right trouser leg at the first attempt; to be able, 
while washing, to stoop down without a head-on dive ; 
to find both shoes on the same side of the room, and 
my clothes hanging on the nail just as I had hung them : 
these were luxuries that made me forget my previous 



348 BACK 

misery. Reaction from misery is, after all, the best 
substitute for happiness. Real happiness is too rare 
and impalpable, and is enjoyed in the past and future 
only. 

Doctor Senn and I each had one hook upon which 
to hang our overcoats, heavy suits, belts, hats and 
the garments we removed at night. And I was glad 
that there had been no occupant of the sofa bunk to 
share these two hooks with us, for there would then 
have been no alternative but to throw our city clothes 
overboard where they would have been better pre- 
served. I never knew to how much use one hook could 
be put until we tested the possibilities on the Brighton ; 
nor did I realize the condition clothes could get into 
from hanging in a bunch upon one nail for a week. 

At "coffee" I found the whole company. Those who 
had sat up and shivered while watching for the "Eads" 
and jetties looked hollow-eyed. The vigilants had 
retired at eleven o'clock, but had lain awake a long 
time with disappointment and cold feet, and had arisen 
early, famished and unrefreshed, and had shivered and 
shifted about cold corners and corridors for a couple 
of hours waiting for lukewarm coffee and jam to start 
the depressed circulation through their congealed 
capillaries. 

Although it was a cold January day and ice had 
formed during the night, the river looked beautiful in 
the morning sunlight as we came nearer to New Or- 
leans. Doctor Waite was even more enthusiastic in 
her appreciation than were the ladies who were not 
doctors, a thing which I could not understand. I 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 349 

always had supposed that a busy surgical life would 
take nearly all of the womanly out of a person. I 
had often observed such an effect upon others as well 
as upon myself. 

When we arrived off the docks of the United Fruit 
Company the first thing we noticed was the S, S. 
Preston, the large boat that had not arrived at Colon 
when we left, and for which we did not wait because 
we wanted to save time and avoid the crowd. We 
expected the delegates to return in it en masse and 
crowd it until it would become more uncomfortable 
than the smaller, unpopular boat, the Brighton, that 
detestable little, breakdown little, slow poke of a rat- 
trap which no one was supposed to take, but which 
nearly every one did take. The Preston had sailed from 
Colon two days later than the Brighton and had ar- 
rived at New Orleans two days earlier. On a sched- 
uled five-days' trip she had beaten us by four days. 
She had provided a stateroom for each passenger or 
married couple, had not struck a reef, and had only 
broken one sailor's leg — which didn't signify as Doc- 
tor Palmer was there to set it immediately. She had 
kept her screw in the water and her deck out of the 
water, and thus had allowed passengers to eat, sleep 
and wear dry clothes. Some of us felt like blowing 
up the Brighton and the United Fruit Company, one 
with dynamite and the other with damning it. 

We arrived at the docks in time for me to take 
the morning train for Chicago and thus escape Doctor 
Frank and his three deadly oyster suppers. But the 
suspicions of Uncle Sam had to be allayed, and before 



350 BACK 

we had signed papers and suffered the conventional 
derangement of our baggage and bric-a-brac, the 
train had gone and I was doomed to eat oysters and 
drink gin fizz and absinthe with a starved man. It is 
not pleasant, after you have eaten more than you want, 
to sit half an hour or so and watch a starved man giv- 
ing way to the eager ecstasy of slowly oncoming re- 
pletion. It seems to be the uppermost desire of every 
one upon arriving at New Orleans to eat a dish of 
oysters. In fact, it is remarkable what an amount of 
enjoyment the human being gets out of what it puts 
into its stomach, forgetting that an organ which af- 
fords such universal and almost continuous enjoy- 
ment deserves, like Hamlet's "Players," to be well 
used. 

After satisfying our curiosity by taking a silver 
fizz, a drink which had made a reputation for a cer- 
tain saloon in New Orleans, Doctors Frank and New- 
man and I had our eleven o'clock breakfast (the post- 
poned oyster supper) at a French restaurant near the 
St. Charles. I myself could only eat half a dozen of 
those large and luscious oysters, but I will not de- 
stroy the reader's good opinion, if he have one, of 
my comrades by telling how many they ate. How- 
ever, we finally stopped eating, promising ourselves 
other oyster meals before the time for the evening 
trains to depart, and went to a saloon in the French 
quarter to increase our knowledge by taking a drink 
of the absinthe that had made New Orleans and this 
saloon famous for twenty years. I swallowed my 
dose and pretended that it was good. Absinthe makes 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 351 

people lie. It is the essence of seasickness and men- 
dacity, and good only for those who, like horses, can't 
get sick at the stomach and can't tell the truth. When 
I have an enemy I will treat him to absinthe, but I 
will not drink it with him. Doctor Frank liked it 
on account of its reputation, just as his patients like 
him. Doctor Newman looked at his emptied glass 
and grunted, then rolled his head solemnly from side 
to side and opened his mouth as if he were going to 
say something important; but nothing came out. 

In the afternoon after all hands had had their oys- 
ter lunches, we were attracted by the "sight-seeing 
auto" standing in front of the St. Charles. Circulars 
were scattered about, advertising "Two delightful 
tours daily and Sunday, leaving St. Charles Hotel 
daily at 10 A, M. and 2 P. M." I have thought it 
worth while to print a copy of the advertised descrip- 
tion of the tour in order to show the reader how 
quackery flourishes and is respected in business life 
as well as in professional. I formerly supposed that 
the medical, legal and sporting professions were the 
only ones which could successfully impose their frauds 
upon the public, but I am now hunting for the only 
profession or business that does not. I would advise 
all young men to divide the business public into two 
classes, viz., enemies and friends. The former will 
want his money to enrich themselves at his expense; 
the latter will solicit it to ruin both him and them- 
selves — but him at any rate. Above all he should be- 
ware of the latter, that his money may not ruin both. 



352 



BACK 



DESCRIPTION OF TOUR 

THE largest automobile in the world takes its way through 
the modem business and residential sections of New 
Orleans as well as that most mystical and picturesque 
part known as the "French Quarter." Here every square has 
its realistic or legendary lore and here will be seen the de- 
scendants of the French and Spanish noblesse and that pecul- 
iar type of American civilization — the Creole of Louisiana. 

Below are given a 



FEW ATTRACTIONS 
St. Charles Hotel. 
A Ride Along the Great Levees. 
Canal Street. 
Steamboat Landing. 
The Custom House and Post Office 

(Cornerstone laid by Henry Clay). 
Liberty Monument. 
Building costing $4,000,000.00. 
Lafayette Square. 
Henry Clay Monument. 
Mississippi River Packets. 
Algiers. 

Immense Sugar Refinery. 
Jackson Square. 

Former "Plantations of the King." 
Place d'Armes. 
Royal Street. 
City Hall (1850). 
New Court House and Jail. 
Orpheum Theater. 
Y. M. C. A. Building. 
First Sugar Refinery in Louisiana 

(1794). 
Statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee. 
Lee Circle. 

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. 
St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. 
Se. Louis Cemetery No. 3. 
Pickwick Club. 

Chess, Checker and Whist Club. 
Buildmg in which Mardi Gras Balls 

are held. 



OF THIS TOUR 

Statue of Benjamin Franklin. 

Statue of John McDonoiigh. 

Beautiful St. Charles Avenue. 

First Presbyterian Church. 

Home of the Famous "Sazerac 
Cocktail." 

Old French Market. 

House where Gen. Lafayette was 
entertained. 

Old Basin. 

Carondelet Canal. 

Most Ancient Cemetery in New 
Orleans. 

Monument to Gen. Jackson. 

Bourbon Street. 

First Church to be built in Louis- 
iana. 

Building in which transfer of Loxiis- 
iana Purchase was made to U. S. 

Old Antique Shops. 

Ancient Court House. 

Old Cabildo — house of Spanish, 
French and American Govern- 
ments. 

St. Louis Cathedral (first built in 
1718). 

Famous French Opera House. 

Old St. Louis Hotel (now Hotel 
Royal). 

Tulane and Crescent Theatres. 

Cotton Exchange. 

Boston Club. 



THE famous auto passes these and many more points of 
interest, traversing the historic byways and grand 
boulevards of this quaint old city. An expert guide 
accompanies each tour and points out each interesting feature 
and tells of the past grandeur and romance and the future 
greatness of New Orleans. 

ONE DOLLAR— THE ROUND TRIP 

Leave St. Charles Hotel 

Seats Reserved in Advance. Telephone, St. Charles Hotel News Stand, 

Main 1600 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 353 

There was a fifty-cent touring auto that started 
once a day from the corner of Canal and St. Charles 
Street, but the best was none too good for us (as the 
sequel proved) and we chose the dollar tour because 
the price was higher and the advertising circulars 
more numerous. 

The description should have commenced thus: 

"The largest and most old-fashioned and used-up 
automobile takes its way at a snail's pace through the 
modern business and residential sections of New Or- 
leans as well as that most delusive and dilapidated 
part known as the "French quarter." Here every 
square inch has its realistic or legendary lore of which 
our guide knows not a thing and says not a word — 
therefore don't bother him with questions. And here 
will be seen the descendants and decadents of the 
French and Spanish noblesse — and great has been the 
descent — and that peculiar type of American civil- 
ization, the Creole of Louisiana. All of these things 
and many more will not be pointed out to you. 

"The infamous auto passes by these and many more 
points of no more interest, traversing the historic 
byways and grand boulevards of this grand old city. 
A pert guy accompanies each tour and puts out each 
interesting feature, and says nothing about the pres- 
ent, and knows nothing about the past grandeur and 
romance, and the future greatness of New Orleans." 

If the company will change the circular to read as 
I have corrected it, I will recommend it as an honest 
one trying to live up to its advertisement. Otherwise 
I must condemn it as a corrupt Philadelphia company, 

23 



354 BACK 

a buyer of cast-off automobiles and off-caste young 
men, which are sent to far-off cities to play tricks 
upon visitors. The company runs automobiles in 
Washington and Philadelphia as well, and sends unin- 
structed strangers to act as guys and guides. They 
depend for their success upon the reputation of some 
of the well-conducted tours in other cities, notably 
Chicago. They avoid trouble by collecting the fares 
before they start. 

On our way through the French quarter Doctor 
Frank tried in vain to get a single word from the guy 
about "the past grandeur and romance" or the "legend- 
ary lore," or about the history of the places. The 
guy had never studied history nor read the news- 
papers, and had not even learned to speak a little 
piece about either history, legend, romance or "rot." 
He could not even tell a lie. He pointed his finger at 
a few business houses, pronounced the names of clubs, 
and showed us the charred walls of a club house that 
had been burned the day before, and pronounced it 
the latest thing in ruins. He showed us the house of 
a rich man, and when we came to the oldest Protestant 
church he stood up and said, "This is the First Pres- 
byterian Church," and sat down. When we got back 
he also showed us the New St. Charles Hotel, and we 
knew at least that he was giving this last "attraction" 
its right name. 

Should any reader doubt the truth of my words let 
him ask Dr. J. Frank of Chicago, whose stomach was 
full after his five days of fasting, and who therefore 
felt in a mood to be pleased with anything half way 



THE LAST DAY AT SEA 355 

entertaining or reasonable. He will say that I have 
not told the truth, but only a portion of it, and he will 
probably complete the recitation of the truth and give 
it some of the color that belongs to it. He was anx- 
ious to learn something about the town, but learned 
nothing. He would even have been glad to tell the guy 
a thing or two about historic and legendary New Or- 
leans, or to give him a piece of his mind, if the fel- 
low had been capable of appreciating either thing, or 
anything. The fellow didn't know what he saw and 
probably would not have understood what he heard. 
Anyway he did not care to see or hear. He was sat- 
isfied with himself and his salary, and we had not the 
heart to interfere with his happiness, as he had with 
ours.* 

*In justice to the local Manhattan Auto-Car Co., whose office is at 211 
St. Charles St., I wish to say that I was again in New Orleans in December 
1907, and had a satisfactory ride in one of their vehicles. Our guide, 
whose name was Ryniger, was as lively and full of information as the one 
described above was stupid and ignorant. Those who take the trip should 
select his car. 



CHAPTER VII 
Traveline North by Way of the South 

Off for Chicago — Trying a Southern Railway — The Sleeping- 
car Mattress, One of the Ltixuries of the World — Court- 
ing Sleep — Astonishing Discovery of Daylight — Spur- 
ious Insomnia — Missing a Cold Bath — A Strange Stranger 
— Mobile — ^The Battle House Restatirant — Patriotic Cof- 
fee — Delicacy Versus Flavor— Five-cent Caf^-au-lait — 
Milk Versus Cream — Central American Bitter Coffee — 
Cereal Coffee — The Best Substitute — ^The Stranger and 
the Conductor — Compelled to Keep a Saloon in His 
Own House — Hugging a Young Lady — ^Tears and the 
Bottle — ^The Capital of Alabama — Mismanaging a Cigar 
— Putting His Boots to Bed — More Ice-water — Cakes 
and Lemons — Breakfast on the Train — An Unaccount- 
able Disappointment — Drowning Sorrow in Drink — ^The 
Great American Treating Habit. 

After our oyster supper my comrades started for 
Chicago via the Illinois Central Railway, and as I 
was committed to the Louisville and Nashville route, 
we parted company. My train was scheduled to start 
at 8 P. M., but a train which was to connect with us 
was indefinitely late, and as we could not safely go 
backward in the dark in search of it, we had to wait. 
Finally the expected happened, the loiterer arrived, 
and we started off at a soothing pace that put me to 
sleep. At home where I had a comfortable bed, a 
quiet room and everything my own way, I couldn't go 

3S6 



TRAVELING NORTH 357 

to sleep like that. In Chicago the pace is too fast. 
Fortunately I had taken the precaution to ask the por- 
ter to call me at six o'clock, that I might breakfast 
at a genuine U. S. hotel in Montgomery, where the 
train was to rest from seven to nine. 

I awoke and turned over a few times in the course 
of the night, as one does on sleeping-car mattresses. 
I did it, however, just to feel how soft and comforta- 
ble the mattress was, and to congratulate myself. Any 
one who does not appreciate a sleeping-car mattress 
can learn to by taking passage in the S. S. Brighton. 
Let him ask the purser, steward or any of the officers 
of one of the small fruit boats about the Pullman mat- 
tress. Let him serve on one of them for two or three 
years and then try the Pullman bed. If I were a Car- 
negie, a Peter Cooper, or any other conscientious mul- 
ti-millionaire, living or dead, I would create a fund 
with some of the money I couldn't enjoy in Heaven 
or on earth, for the purpose of enabling all employees 
of fruit boats to live on land. Why do not the fruit- 
boatmen strike for better beds? Workmen on land 
strike for everything they want, and get it; and ev- 
erybody tolerates the general inconvenience of it. We 
are all willing to help. 

I noticed after two or three waking spells that the 
train was always stationary, but inferred that it was 
the stopping that disturbed and wakened me, for I 
was not accustomed to sleeping without noise and 
motion. After a time I became convinced that I could 
not go to sleep without their assistance, and waited 
impatiently for the train to begin its rumbling and 



358 BACK 

bumping motion. As it did not start I concluded 
that it had stopped to take a long rest at Mobile, where 
it was due at 1 1 140 P. M., and that the time of day 
was therefore the middle of the night. I felt like 
blaming the Southern railroads for the way they al- 
lowed their express trains to lie around on side-tracks 
all along the line, waiting to miss connections, instead 
of hustling to make time and accommodate nervous 
people. I criticised them for their schedule habit of 
leaving New Orleans at 8 P. M. in order to loaf about 
Mobile and visit for two hours at Montgomery. My 
train could just as well have left at midnight and have 
given me an opportunity to go to the French opera 
with Doctor and Mrs. Palmer and have an oyster 
supper with them afterward, as to pretend to leave at 
eight, lie waiting for late trains until after nine, then 
shuffle off like a tramp-train and constantly wake me 
by standing still. A sleeping car should not try to 
imitate a bedroom in a country hotel. 

I strove to become accustomed to the quiet and to 
will myself to sleep. I kept turning myself over like 
a pancake that must sooner or later get done. I 
turned on my side and tried to snore myself off. But 
snoring loves an audience, and I didn't have any. It 
occurred to me that I was kept awake by the enjoy- 
ment of the to me unusual comfort of the bed, so I 
turned on my side and put my under arm behind me 
to keep myself from being too comfortable. When I 
couldn't endure that position any longer I uncovered 
my head to be able to hear what was going on, and 
thus listen myself to sleep, but there were no noises. 



TRAVELING NORTH 359 

I threw down the cover and tried to keep cool, but 
the car was warm. I tried all of the stunts known 
to insomniacs, from complicated and inverted meth- 
ods of counting to the solution of problems and the 
composition of scientific lectures, but they only made 
me hungry. Apparently I had not eaten oysters 
enough in New Orleans to last through the attack, 
so I ate two apples which I happened to have in my 
overcoat pocket. But eating never did agree with 
me, and I became more wide awake than ever. In 
bed I was no better off than an ordinary millionaire. 
His money could not buy Nature's gift to the poor, 
and my science could not produce it. I knew that we 
were not lying at Montgomery or it would have been 
daylight and the porter would have called me. Hence 
I concluded that my arrival in the United States had 
brought back my old insomnia and that there was no 
remedy for it but expatriation or a sailor's life. 

Finally I became utterly discouraged at having lost 
almost an entire night's rest, for I was too much of 
a veteran to expect any more sleep that night. So I 
sat up and pulled aside the window curtain to see if 
there were any signs of dawn. To my astonishment 
I let in bright sunlight. The window curtain had fit- 
ted so tightly in the window frame that the usual 
morning ray of light had not penetrated. I had mis- 
taken the shimmer of light about the edges of the 
curtains for the night lights of the station. I rang 
for the porter and asked him why it was daylight. 

"Dunno, sah," he answered, " 'cept it's eight o'clock, 
and we's waitin' heah at Mobile fob a broken bridge 
to git mended." 



36o BACK 

All of my insomnia had evidently been since about 
6 A. M., and after eight hours of sleep, or two hours 
more than my average when I am sleeping well. I 
now knew that I had acquired the insomnia habit, and 
was destined to be a victim of insomnia no matter 
how well I slept. A bridge over which we were to 
pass was disabled, and by waiting until it was repaired, 
instead of going right along regardless, like a North- 
ern express train, we missed a cold morning bath — 
being given no chance to choose between the bath and 
the extra nap. The train ahead of us had taken our 
bath. But like all dyspeptics who fret before arising, I 
felt consoled and cheerful after getting up and letting 
in the sunlight and realizing that the world was still 
getting on all right. 

As the bridge could not be sufficiently repaired for 
traffic until noon, I concluded to make the best of the 
situation and hunt up a good cup of coffee. Mobile 
was the capital of the French possessions in America 
200 years ago, long before old New Orleans was 
born. In the antebellum days Mobile was the hot- 
house of the Southern aristocracy and is now one of 
the richest towns in the old South in proportion to its 
population. I would find a good cup of cafe-au-lait in 
Mobile. 

While I was making my toilet, a man of about sev- 
enty years, with scant white hair and delicate features, 
entered the dressing-room with a pint bottle of whis- 
key in his hand, and addressed me cordially. 

"Have a drop, stranger?" 

"Is it French coffee?" I asked. 



TRAVELING NORTH 361 

"No, it's Kentucky corn juice. Try some?" 

"No, I thank you. I always begin the day with a 
drink of pure water." 

"And end it with a drink of pure whiskey, eh? I 
commence with water too, but I can't take it pure be- 
fore breakfast." 

After taking a stomachful of equal parts of whiskey 
and water, he warmed up and became talkative. He 
told me he had boarded the train at midnight and had 
awaked in the morning at the same place from which 
he had started. He said the train had held its own 
and hadn't drifted any, and that he had known it 
wouldn't; but he had engaged his berth to sleep in 
and was going to fulfill his part of the contract like 
a law-abiding citizen. 

I told him that this delay was only one of many 
mishaps that had befallen me, that I had experienced 
nothing but delays since I had left home six weeks 
before, and would arrive there nearly a week behind 
time. I had been singularly unfortunate. 

"Young man!" he exclaimed in a startling, sepul- 
chral voice that quivered slightly, like that of an ora- 
tor giving a cue to the emotion he is about to evoke. 
"Young man, you don't know what you are talking 
about." 

"You're right," I answered; "I have had insomnia 
since six o'clock this morning, and my bearings are 
a little bit off. I never complain of real troubles, for 
they are blessings in disguise. They are good for us. 
Fancied troubles are the blighting ones." 

"Suppose that you had been kept away from your 



362 BACK 

home on account of your health for three months, and 
were now called home to a dying wife, and couldn't 
make any better progress than I have since I started 
last night? You don't know what real troubles are, 
young man." 

Here he took another drink of his poison and I 
expressed as much sympathy as I could, considering 
the novelty of the exhibition, and started out in search 
of tny poison, viz., cafe-au-lait. 

I confess that I was considerably surprised at the 
old-fashioned provincial aspect of the town, and con- 
cluded that it was a better place than it appeared to 
be. Like New Orleans, it had a good harbor, had 
wealth, was the seaport of a prosperous Southern 
state, and imported bananas ; yet it looked to me very 
much like a large country town of one business street. 
It belonged to the older generation of cities, already 
in a senile stage of existence. But the old aristocrats, 
who had been too proud to engage in commercial pur- 
suits or to encourage their sons to do so, were nearly 
all dead, and the town, under the influence of new 
ideas, was beginning a new life and taking on new 
growth and development. So I resolved to test her 
with cafe-au-lait, and hurried out in search of the 
Battle House of antebellum fame. I finally found a 
shabby old building that had seen better days, with 
an unexpectedly aristocratic-looking restaurant under 
it full of well-dressed negro waiters, who bowed and 
scraped and ran on tiptoe as they always do where 
the tipping system is in vogue. It was the waiters' 
way of announcing the fact to their victims. But the 



TRAVELING NORTH 363 

poor fellows (the waiters) served them (their vic- 
tims) with a sort of feverish anxiety, and served them 
well and swell, and thus almost justified the system. 
My waiter was not, however, as good a Frenchman 
in scholarship as in manners, for although he under- 
stood my order for an omelette, he did not under- 
stand "cafe-au-lait," or "coffee with hot milk." Hot 
milk was too plebeian — cream was served in his res- 
taurant. 

After a long wait my breakfast came. The omelette 
was good, but the rolls were American biscuit rolls, 
damp, soft, lukewarm and flavorless. And the hot 
milk was in a tiny lunch-counter pitcher that held less 
than two tablespoonfuls. • The coffee was clear and 
unadulterated, and therefore genuine United States 
made coffee. When U. S, makes coffee that is clear, 
U. S. thinks she has made coffee. She uses good or 
bad Mocha and Java in moderate quantity, but in or- 
der to make it clear she puts an t^g in it which hard- 
ens about the grounds before the full flavor has been 
extracted, and thus much of the flavor remains at the 
bottom of the pot to be boiled out and developed for 
the servants and the waste-pail. Then the drinker 
covers up the taste with rich cream, thinking that the 
flavor, being covered up, cannot get away. Such cof- 
fee is comparatively harmless to the commonwealth, 
and on that account deserves its popularity. It is one 
of the few popular things that are harmless. 

One of the advantages of cafe-au-lait is that the 
proportion of the two ingredients can be varied to 
suit the taste or idiosyncrasy of the drinker. Those 



364 BACK 

who can not drink strong coffee can diminish the pro- 
portion of coffee with milk until but little coffee is 
used, and those who can not drink full strength milk 
can reduce the quantity of milk until but little milk is 
used. The palate will soon become accustomed to 
what is habitually drunk and may finally be taught 
to prefer either dilution. 

I ate my breakfast and my hunger was appeased; 
but as I had started out to get a hot drink rather than 
something to eat, I was not satisfied, and the enjoy- 
ment of the meal was incomplete. I do not wish to 
say anything derogatory to the Battle House restau- 
rant, for the hotel has died since (was burned up) and 
therefore deserves to be eulogized. In fact, I wish 
to praise the restaurant on patriotic grounds. It made 
American coffee and deserves praise for being Ameri- 
can instead of French, which in itself is the highest 
praise I can give. But it did not occur to me to feel 
patriotic at the time. The temperature, following the 
"norther," was 36 degrees F., the most chilling and 
unpatriotic temperature of the whole Fahrenheit sys- 
tem, and as I went out into the street my thoughts 
were still upon a good, hot, comforting cup of coffee. 
I therefore resolved to try again, and finally found a 
low-down restaurant on the corner of Royal Street 
near the station and got a cup of their cheap coffee, 
probably ordinary South American or Central Ameri- 
can, which might have been thickened and blackened 
by a little chicory. It was not as clear and delicate 
as that of the Battle House, but it had more flavor. 
I asked for hot milk and when I had diluted the coffee 



TRAVELING NORTH 365 

nearly one half, the mixture still had flavor. I could 
have drunk three or four cupfuls. The charge for it 
was five cents. The price was the only bad thing 
about it, and I almost felt un-American at having 
enjoyed five cents so hugely. I felt humiliated, but 
I felt good. 

The Central American coffee is quite bitter when 
well made. I was told that in order to develop the 
bitter flavor the Central Americans burn the coffee 
beans when they roast them, and thus render it more 
bitter than natural. This scorching takes away some 
of its delicacy of flavor and renders it unpalatable to 
many North Americans, but by using plenty of sugar 
when it is taken black, or by diluting it with an equal 
quantity of hot unskimmed milk and using but a small 
quantity of sugar, its bitterness is modified and it 
has a richness of flavor that makes it preferable to the 
so-called Mocha and Java as ordinarily made. It 
differs from ordinary U. S. restaurant coffee as cham- 
pagne from cider. But, of course, many prefer cider. 

Cereal coffee is possibly a good substitute for young 
people whose nerves are more easily injured than their 
stomachs. But for middle-aged and old people it is 
too heavy, for the amount of starch in it which must 
be swallowed without mastication tends to produce 
acid fermentation in the alimentary canal and hasten 
the advent of gout, which is the goal of all good eaters 
and drinkers. Cereal coffee has just one excuse for 
existing, but I've forgotten what it is. Old-fash- 
ioned chicory has more flavor and is less fermentable, 
and therefore is preferable for both the young and 



366 BACK 

old. Pure coffee contains no starch and not enough 
tannin to injure a canary bird, and the stimulation 
of moderate coffee drinking is not very injurious to 
people past middle age. The only real contraindica- 
tion is youth — but youth is always contradictory. Next 
to the sugar put into the coffee, the most injurious 
feature is the manner of drinking it, viz., sipping it 
while eating, and thus washing down food that should 
be chewed until dissolved and washed down by the 
saliva. 

But the best solution of the whole coffee problem 
is to sip a glass of hot, slightly salted milk at the be- 
ginning and another at the end of the meal, and to eat 
the meal dry between them. If persisted in to the 
exclusion of coffee this hot milk habit will after a time 
take away all desire for coffee drinking, which is a 
habit of civilization and a very ancient and barbarous 
one. But many of us who consider ourselves civil- 
ized have barbarous tastes and habits, and do not wish 
to relinquish them. We bequeath the refining of our 
barbarous tastes to posterity — to our heirs. Let them 
fight over them, as they do over the other things. 

After the train had finally pulled out I heard the 
sleeping-car stranger telling the sleeping-car conduc- 
tor of his misfortune and the reason why he had been 
obliged to stay away from his home, which was in 
Hyde Park, Chicago. He said he couldn't stand the 
cold there, and that it was impossible to get a hot 
drink within walking distance of his house. 

"Just imagine," he said, "living in Chicago and not 
being able to get a hot drink ; to have to keep a saloon 



TRAVELING NORTH 367 

in your own house. There is something wrong- about 
a community that makes every man keep a private 
saloon." 

"You're right, sir. There must be something wrong 
about a city that can not provide saloons enough for 
its citizens. They must be tea-totalers," replied the 
conductor sympathetically. 

"Yes, and every one of 'em is tanning his stomach 
with tea and coffee. Serves 'em right. Let 'em tan 
it, damn it! By the way, conductor, did you see the 
fun a few minutes ago?" 

"No, what was it?" 

"I hugged a young lady, and she didn't object. 
Yes, sir, I did it. As I was passing her in the aisle 
she stumbled against me and I had to hug her to keep 
from being knocked down. She begged my pardon 
and I excused her, thinking that honors were even, 
ha, ha!" 

"We'll be looking for an elopement, next," sug- 
gested the conductor. 

"No," he said, "my tongue is the only thing that 
would run away with me now." 

After thus dwelling a while in a facetious manner 
on the details of the romantic adventure, and repeat- 
ing himself many times, he suddenly remembered 
what he was there for and began to talk tearfully 
about his wife, and pulled out his bottle and went 
into the smoking-room for water. The old man was 
as young in his feelings as the day he was born — he 
had a saving sense of humor. Those who are not 
gifted with a sense of humor are born old; those with 



368 BACK 

it die young. Notwithstanding his troubles, the old 
man was dying young. 

We arrived at Montgomery at 5 P. M. and had to 
change cars in order to catch the train that had left 
New Orleans in the morning, twelve hours after we 
had. By this time the old gentleman was dull and 
heavy and did not wish to get off. He had paid for 
his berth expecting the car to go on to Chicago, and 
insisted on keeping it. He said that he had fulfilled 
his part of the contract. They put him off, however, 
and I left the poor old fellow in the station while I 
went out for a stroll through the main thoroughfare 
of the picturesque little capital of Alabama in the 
heart of the South, It is a busy-looking place of about 
30,000 inhabitants, with crowded streets and attrac- 
tive-looking stores that seemed to be doing plenty of 
business. Following the main thoroughfare, I soon 
came within sight of the state-house, which showed 
off to great advantage on the hill at the head of the 
street. Beside it I found the Confederate Soldiers' 
Monument, which was a credit to the state from a 
confederate point of view. It even created strong 
feelings of admiration and sympathy in me, a lifelong 
republican and sinner. 

When I returned to the train at half past six the 
old Hyde Parker, who was forced to keep a private 
saloon in his own house, came aboard with a full 
stock of wet goods in his system and a fresh stock 
in his pocket. He sat in the smoking-room trying in 
vain to crack jokes and smoke a cigar. His ideas 
were muddled and he had lost the knack of managing 



TRAVELING NORTH 369 

a lighted cigar. He did not put the wrong end in 
his mouth nor miss his mouth, but he repeatedly 
dropped it, let it go out twice, chewed the end off, 
burned his fingers and finally threw it at the cuspidor, 
missing his aim and scattering the ashes on our feet. 

Two young men, who seemed to be commercial 
travelers, took a kind-hearted interest in him and of- 
fered to help him to bed. But the septuagenarian 
did not know the number of his berth and could not 
find his ticket. He had left it in his overcoat and did 
not know where his overcoat was. One of the young 
men went to the porter, found the overcoat and num- 
ber, and had the berth made up. He himself had un- 
doubtedly helped and been helped to bed on sundry 
occasions in the past and was willing and qualified 
for the deed of sympathy. When he returned the 
old man was offering to fight three of us. I knew 
that it was one of the Hyde Parker's tipsy jokes, 
but the others, not knowing him as well as I did, 
took him seriously and insisted upon putting him to 
bed. They were preparing to use kindly force if nec- 
essary. He then started to unlace his shoes in the 
smoking-room and, upon being told by the astonished 
young men not to take them off there, he said that he 
wanted to put his shoes to bed first, and asked how 
they could get to bed unless he put them there. Real- 
izing that they took him in earnest, he went on in that 
way for a while before he allowed them to lead him 
off. He was not too far gone to have a little sport 
with them. 

The next morning when I entered the dressing-room 

24 



370 BACK 

his empty whiskey bottle lay on the washstand under 
the ice-water faucet, indicating that he had been to 
the water already, and he sat near the window eating 
sponge cakes out of a paper bag. He was sober and 
thoughtful and did not seem to be enjoying his break- 
fast. I had a few limes left from the stock laid in at 
Bocas del Toro and was sucking one. 

"If you would suck one of these limes," I said, "it 
would give a fine lemon flavor to your cake." 

"Lemons don't taste good, and they don't agree with 
me," he replied with a sort of grimace. 

"But I have studied foods and digestions for a quar- 
ter of a century, and know what tastes good and di- 
gests well. That cake is too sweet. Just try a lime 
with it." 

"Stranger," he said, "I have tasted and digested 
food for nearly three quarters of a century and knew 
what tastes good before you were thought of." 

"Surely you must have been mistaken all of this 
time," I said, "or you would agree with me, for I 
am a physician and have learned all about taste and 
digestion. Hereafter, before deciding how a thing 
tastes, ask me." 

"Well, Doctor, I'd like to know how whiskey 
tastes." 

"Like poison," I answered. 

"Well, I feel just like taking poison, and the poi- 
soner the better," he said as he arose and started for 
the water tank. 

I allowed him to poison himself while I went out 
to the dining-car for breakfast. When I returned I 



TRAVELING NORTH 



371 



found him smoking a black cigar and looking quite 
pleasant. The poison had reached its cerebral des- 
tination and had overcome the melancholy tension. 

He asked me how the breakfast had tasted. 

"Why, you have been eating breakfast for three 
quarters of a century and ought to know," I answered. 

"I've lived just long enough. Doctor, to learn that 
eating breakfast before working for it is a bad habit 
that follows civilization." 

"I agree with you there. It is a mere matter of 
taste after all. As a doctor I eat breakfast before I 
work, not because it is a bad habit, but because I am 
a doctor, and must know how it acts in order to be 
able to treat others who do it. I eat to learn." 

"And I suppose they charged you a dollar for the 
lesson, for learning how it tasted?" 

"No," I said, "this isn't a dollar car. Meals are 
served a la carte. You can get all you want for less 
than a dollar, unless you have an officious waiter who 
puts on so much style for you that you feel ashamed 
to take back what is left of your dollar. If you are 
a grapefruit faddist your breakfast costs a quarter 
more. Or if you are rich and don't know any better 
you can take sweetened grapefruit, breakfast food 
smothered with sugar, an omelette with jelly, melted 
butter on toast, coffee sweetened into syrup, griddle 
cakes served with honey and milk, and Apollinaris 
to wash it all down, and can spend a couple of dollars 
and lay up disease for the future, as the lady and gen- 
tleman across from me were doing. I had a fine large 
piece of broiled white fish, with Saratoga potatoes. 



372 BACK 

cornbread, two cups of coffee and a pitcher of hot 
milk, all for eighty cents, less than double the price 
of a common restaurant breakfast." 

"You have to pay something to keep the wheels 
going around," he remarked. 

"Yes, and for the comfort and convenience," I 
answered. "It's worth it. You can get chops for 
fifty cents, a tenderloin steak for sixty-five cents, or 
eggs for twenty cents." 

The old man's eyes opened wider and he began to 
swallow saliva as I continued: 

"They have a fine list of specials on the bill of fare 
this morning: Spanish omelette, hashed chicken with 
poached eggs, shad's roe with bacon, and a lot of 
dainty dishes at popular prices." 

He put down his cigar and said, "I say, stranger, 
I'm getting hungry for something good to eat, even 
if I don't know what tastes good. I believe I'll go in 
and try it." 

When he came back I asked him if he had had a 
good breakfast. 

"Yes, I had breakfast," he said, and maintained a 
gloomy silence. 

Whether my glowing description had led him to 
expect too much, or whether the prices were unsatis- 
factory, or whether he had been taken with one of his 
facetious attacks and had gotten himself into trouble 
with the decorous and decorative dining-car conduc- 
tor, or whether his domestic troubles had gained the 
ascendency and spoiled his breakfast, or whether a 
good meal did not agree with him as well as a good 



TRAVELING NORTH 373 

drink, or whether it was getting too far past the time 
for another "smile," or what not, I could not ascer- 
tain. So I left him alone with his full stomach and 
empty bottle and went to my seat in the sleeper. 

When I returned a little later he was saying to two 
men who were smoking with him : 

"Gentlemen, I can't help speaking of it. I have 
been buried in the pine woods for three months and 
am now going home to bury my wife. Oh, it's hard! 
Where's the porter? I must have another drink." 

We tried to dissuade him and refused to join him, 
but he got his drink in spite of our efforts. 

"It's hard, gentlemen. I remember how when my 
mother died, my father called my brother and me to 
him and said, 'Boys, your mother is dying. She'll 
never sit at the table with us again, never again.' 
And to think that now I am going home to tell my 
boys the same thing. Oh, it's hard! I must have an- 
other drink. I can't stand it." 

His voice was broken with emotion and his eyes 
full of tears as he tried to persuade us to take a drink 
with him, but he had to take one alone. We had no 
excuse for getting drunk. We could not say, Joliet 
like, "Drinking is such sweet sorrow, that I shall 
keep on drinking till it be morrow." 

By noon he had taken five drinks that I knew of, 
besides having finished his own bottle before break- 
fast, and was again telling jokes. He had a specific 
remedy for grief. 

The old man was a true American in his feelings 
and actions. He had hesitated about paying a dollar 



374 BACK 

for a breakfast on wheels with its flying luxuries, 
and was not ashamed to be frugal in his diet, yet had 
spent more than a dollar since breakfast for drinks, 
and had offered to "treat" like a prince. And the 
fact that he was on his way home to the bedside of a 
dying wife was not sufficient even temporarily to break 
up his drinking habit. Surely we Americans are 
creatures of habit, especially of the treating habit, 
which leads to the drinking habit. We are the most 
hospitable people in the world. In other countries 
people treat and entertain for a purpose; we do so 
without a purpose. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Did You Have a Pleasant Trip? 

Home at Last — Too much Tropics — The Hold-up — Ex- 
plaining about It at Home, per Telephone, at the Hos- 
pital, at the Office — The Time of My Life — An Exhaust- 
ing Office Hour — Easier to Stay at Home — A Formu- 
lated Answer — Its Nauseating Repetition — Talking It 
over with Another Victim. 

I arrived at home late in the afternoon tired out 
mentally by six weeks of discomfort and change of 
habits, and weakened physically by bodily inactivity 
and continuous tropical heat. Even the enjoyment 
of the medical meetings was associated with loss of 
sleep and overwork of the digestive organs, and did 
nothing to rest the mind or invigorate the body. 
I was in that excitable state of mind that usually accom- 
panies an impoverished state of blood in active people. 
And when my wife asked me if I had had a pleas- 
ant trip I had to go into considerable unpleasant detail 
to enable her to ask me why I went. 

By the time I had divested myself of the dust and 
dilapidation of travel, my son, who was as large as I, 
but not as old, came home and startled me with the 
information that he had been held up by two footpads 
at eleven o'clock the night before on the corner of 
Drexel Boulevard and Forty-sixth Street. 

375 



376 BACK 

"How dared you?" I exclaimed. "And within 
half a block of home. How did you do it?" 

"Oh, it was easy enough, I ran up against the muz- 
zle of a pistol and they did the rest." 

"But you should not have done it — ^you are too 
young. I am two and a half times as old as you, and 
I haven't done it yet. / never ran up to two footpads 
on a deserted boulevard at 1 1 P. M. One should always 
reserve such experiences for the future. Don't you 
know that it's dangerous to get frightened in that 
way? 

"Oh, / wasn't frightened. They were frightened. 
They were in such haste to run away that they only 
took my carfare and pocketbook." 

"So they took your carfare, your last nickel. It was 
a mean trick. They ought to have been shot." 

"No ; they were quite decent and friendly. When 
I asked them to give back my fraternity meal ticket, 
which was all my pocketbook contained, they said 
'Sure!' and handed it out to me. They did not even 
take my fraternity pin which was in plain sight." 

"Good for them! Fraternities originated among 
thieves, as fraternity methods indicate. They showed, 
however, that there is something good about frater- 
nities by sharing your pocketbook with you. I sup- 
pose that they also returned your watch?" 

"No ; they didn't find it for I do not carry my fob 
by night. In their hurry they forgot to feel of 
the watch pocket in niy pants." 

"Don't say pants. Heath; say trousers. Or, if you 
will talk Dago, say pantaloons. Pants and panties are 



DID YOU HAVE A PLEASANT TRIP 377 

undignified abbreviations. One would think that you 
had been fraternizing with footpads all of your life." 

"And they did not discover my ring, which was 
concealed by my glove." 

"Well, my son, now that you have accomplished 
your object in coming home so late of nights, I hope 
that you will consider that you have no further excuse 
for making the street pavements work by night as 
well as by day. . And I trust you will also profit by 
the example of your fraternal footpads never to do 
things in a hurry, even when you are doing wrong. 
How did you get away from them?" 

"They told me to hand over my bills. But when 
they learned that receipted bills were the only kind 
I had, they told me to run. I said 'Sure!' and ran. 
And they ran in the opposite direction as fast as they 
could. I ran to Forty-seventh Street and saw a po- 
liceman as far away as I could see toward Fiftieth 
Street, walking toward me." 

"Well, I congratulate you," I said, growing calmer 
as I realized that he had had a useful experience, one 
that is not vouchsafed to every college boy. "You are 
smarter than your father ; your business horizon is not 
bounded by the payment of bills. You came out ahead 
in your bargain with the footpads; you gave them a 
nickel and they gave you a meal ticket. Keep on 
getting the better of people and you will die rich. I 
discovered the method too late to adopt it as a prin- 
ciple. If I had my Hfe to live over again, I would 
take a lesson from you. But don't forget to profit by 
this experience, viz., to wear gloves when you wear a 



378 BACK 

ring, and to spend all but your carfare before coming 
home at night." 

He then asked me if I had had a nice time while 
away. After I had explained to him that I had not 
derived as much of a sensation from my six weeks 
and hundreds of dollars as he had from his five min- 
utes and a nickel, my younger son arrived and asked 
me the same question, and thus made another expla- 
nation necessary. 

Dinner was then ready. After dinner my married 
daughter called up my wife by telephone and asked 
her if I had had a pleasant trip. My wife answered: 

"Oh, yes ; but he is very tired. Traveling is so 
tiresome, etc., etc.," and thus evaded a direct answer. 
She couldn't tell a lie, and she wouldn't tell the truth. 

A little later Doctor Doering called me up and 
asked me if I had had a pleasant trip. I explained 
in detail how storms at sea and the inevitable and 
invariable miscalculations and misconnections of 
Southern travel had interfered more or less with the 
accomplishment of the objects of my medico-social 
holiday enterprise. 

The next morning I stopped at the Woman's Hos- 
pital and met Doctor Martin, the great medical hand- 
shaker, at the hall door. He stepped up to me with 
a radiant accentuated smile, shook me thoroughly 
and said: 

"Why, hello, Byford! Did you have a pleasant 
trip?" 

He had me by the hand and is stronger than he 
looks. Hence I could not quickly get away, and pro- 



DID YOU HAVE A PLEASANT TRIP 379 

ceeded to explain that I had seen the place where it 
was thought that the canal was going to be dug, and 
where it was thought that the meeting of the Medical 
Congress had been held, and was more or less satis- 
fied with my trip, particularly with the getting back 
end of it. 

After a few other evasive answers, applauded by 
genuine shakes, I escaped from his grip and ran al- 
most into the arms of the housekeeper. She stopped 
a minute, looked at me with animated eyes and an ex- 
pansive smile and said: 

"Why, Doctor Byford, how do you do? Did you 
have a pleasant trip?" 

"Why — y-yes, very pleasant — that is — considering 
that I had to be away from the hospital and my work. 
Very pleasant, but quite warm and sunshiny, thank 
you." 

I escaped up stairs, but Doctor Steele stood grin- 
ning at the top. "Why, how are you, Byford? Did 
you have a pleasant trip?" 

"Yes, of course. It was a great success and I got 
back safely. I met the Panama women and the Pan- 
apa men and saw the site of the Panamaiiana canal 
and many other strange sights." 

I hurried away toward the wards as if very busy, 
although I had but one patient in the hospital. She 
was there when I left for Panama, and had apparently 
waited, womanlike, to ask me the question, for there 
seemed to be nothing else the matter with her. But 
she paid me for my answer and was welcome to it. 

Before I could escape from the building Doctor 



38o BACK 

Paddock caught sight of me in time to stop me. He 
slowed up for a good talk, and exclaimed in his hail- 
fellow-well-metest manner : 

"Why, By ford, how are you, old fellow? Did you 
have a pleasant trip?" 

I threw up my right hand in Patrick Henry style 
and cried as I rushed by him toward the door: 

"Did I? I had the time of my life, the very time 
of my life ! Ha, ha !" 

I shot out of the door, lost my footing, and slid 
all the way down the icy iron steps, reckless of life and 
limb, and was off for my office. It is strange how one 
will forget one's dignity and risk one's life for things 
and people that don't pay. One should never lose 
one's patience, or one's equilibrium in a hurry. 

At the office the young lady attendant greeted me 
effusively (more so, I thought, than the mere fact 
that I had come to keep my regular office hour really 
called for), and wanted to know if I had had a pleas- 
ant trip. 

"The time of my life ; the very loveliest time of my 
life," I said, and locked myself in my private room. 

On account of having returned later than I had 
announced, I had an unusually large number of pa- 
tients that morning. Each one delayed me at the end 
of the consultation by politely and kindly asking the 
question. Evidently they considered it a sort of tail 
or tale to the consultation, as a dessert belongs to a 
dinner or a wag to a dog. 

Before I had gotten through with my patients Doc- 
tor Isham caught a glimpse of me as I ushered one 



DID YOU HAVE A PLEASANT TRIP 381 

of them out, and rushed into me and shook my hand 
with the spontaneous cordiality of true politeness. He 
said that he did not wish to take up my time while 
patients were waiting, but just wanted to ask me if I 
had had a pleasant trip. 

"Why, sir," I said jubilantly, "I just had the time of 
my life, that's all. Banquets, highballs and fancy 
balls enough to drown us and bury us and decorate 
our graves. The Panamanians spent $25,000 on 
twenty-five of us in four days, and seven of the twen- 
ty-five were from Chicago. Chicago got a third, and 
probably more. In short, we had a hot time. If you 
don't believe it, go to Panama next Christmas and find 
out." 

After thus beating time for a while longer I got 
him out. When I had taken the "dessert" with my last 
patient I felt quite exhausted, for, as I have intimated 
before, life in the tropics thins the blood and softens 
the muscles, and thus had diminished my powers of 
endurance. While there I had not felt the need of 
good blood and firm muscles, but upon assuming ac- 
tive duties in zero weather I missed them. When, 
therefore, I started for home I was in a neurasthenic, 
irritable state of mind. As I passed through the re- 
ception-room the sister of the ofifice attendant, who 
happened to be there, smiled and bowed to me and 
wanted to know if I had had a pleasant trip. 

"What's that?" I said, less ceremoniously than I 
intended. 

"Did you have a pleasant trip, Doctor?" 

"Oh — why certainly. Why not? Do you suppose," 



382 BACK 

I said gaily, as I backed toward the door, "that I 
could travel 2,400 miles and spend $25,000 in four 
days without having a pleasant trip? Just spend 
$25,000 and travel 2,400 miles in four days and you'll 
know what a pleasant trip I had; you'll have the time 
of your life. Then every one will ask you if you had 
a pleasant trip, and you'll have the time of your Hfe 
again. Good day." 

And so for several days my life was dominated by 
this conventionality of polite speech. It would have 
been much easier to have staid at home than to have 
gone through what I had, viz., five days of sickness 
on the S. S. Limon ; one night on the seasick Italian 
steamship; nearly two weeks in the blood-hot city 
of Panama, dodging mosquitoes and not daring to 
light the candle in my bedroom, laboriously tucking 
in the mosquito bar all around every night in the dark, 
and hiding under it for three hours in the middle of 
each day ; perspiring continuously ; bathing in a wash- 
bowl ; forced to eat and drink two banquets daily, 
that kept me thin ; treating and being treated to high- 
balls half a dozen times daily, that made me sick; 
being cheated by Chinamen, that made me asham.ed; 
having to see a brave rooster murdered and a tame 
bull tortured and assassinated; spending a week 
stowed away in the S. S. Brighton, while rocked by 
the trade-winds, tossed by a "norther" and bedeviled 
by insomnia ; becalmed for twelve hours between New 
Orleans and Chicago; losing a bunch of keys, two 
umbrellas, five handkerchiefs, my railroad ticket, a 
ten-dollar bill and a necktie fastener; being caught 



DID YOU HAVE A PLEASANT TRIP 383 

fifty-five times in the rain and once in the water, — and 
then having to write a book about it. But to be asked 
forty times a day for forty days, "Did you have a pleas- 
ant trip ?" cured me of all desire for travel. Travel and 
travail are of the same origin. The next time I want 
to go to Panama I will stay at home and read about it, 
and then talk about it. Let others who care to go, read 
my book instead. The book isn't half as bad as the 
trip, and nobody will ask them about it, and thus they 
will not be obliged to tell lies about it. In order to clear 
my conscience for all time, I formulated an answer 
that I chose not to consider a lie. I replied to every- 
body thus, "Pleasant trip? Why, I had the time of 
my life. Read my book about it — 'tis just like it." 

But even the repetition of the formula became as 
nauseating as forty squabs (or squalls) in forty days, 
and I sometimes made myself ridiculous by invent- 
ing uncompromising variations. But finally I learned 
to be patient, and now feel that my trip to the tropics 
was worth while, for it finished the development of 
my character. I have become a man of patience, and 
say nothing whenever I feel as if I ought to talk 
back. 

I met Doctor Brower on the street one day and 
asked him if he had had a pleasant trip. He stopped 
breathing for a second and looked at me queerly, but 
finally smiled. 

"Byford, do you know, I have heard that remark 
before." 

"Shake!" said I. "Misery loves company. I sup- 
pose that you have become a confirmed liar by this 



384 BACK 

time, and are writing a text-book full of lies and bad 
advice." 

"Well, it's terribly monotonous," he answered, "to 
have to repeat to every one you meet what a fine time 
you have had. But our trip was not such a very bad 
one after all." 

"What? Come now, you don't have to lie to me. 
You're overdoing it. Beware of the lying habit." 

"Well, it wasn't very sweet but it was short. You 
ought to travel with Doctor Senn to the North Pole, 
Lake Baikal, Vladivostok, tropical India, and every 
other God-forsaken place on the footstool. You'd 
consider this trip an interesting little nightmare to be 
laughed at and forgotten, when compared with the 
prolonged punishment of trotting around the globe 
after Senn, whose legs are made of solid steel. But 
I've done with Senn as a traveling companion. His 
notion of joy and mine are constitutionally different. 
Something is wrong with his idea of enjoyment. I 
can't diagnose his case because he has no nerves. 
There's something uncanny about him. He can't be 
discouraged, killed or made seasick. I've no patience 
with him." 



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